


Anomaly

by Buckaruin



Category: Original Work
Genre: Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Found Family, Implied Childhood Sexual Abuse, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Mental Illness, Mild Gore, Multi, Polyamory, Post-Apocalypse, Self-Harm, Suicide Attempt, Tragedy with a happy ending, contains death and violence, mentioned date rape
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-11
Updated: 2020-10-11
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:22:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 34
Words: 40,658
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23586055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Buckaruin/pseuds/Buckaruin
Summary: From upsetting past to upsetting present, this is the story of a traumatized wasteland warrior and the family she creates along the way.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 3





	1. Arc 1 Chapter 1 - Eli

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ayyy it's a rocky start but hopefully y'all will get to watch me get better at writing in real time. Fun fact: The actual main character, the woman with the scarred face, was created back in 2011, when I was fourteen. She was a fan-character for Regular Show then, and her story was posted on Fanfiction.net and called The Fox! She was a shameless enhanced self-insert then, and you might notice her personality has changed drastically now. Anyway, it's still up there for anyone who can find it (and please don't mind my old account bio, it's cringe as shiiiiiit).

The sedan was full of excited chatter, but there was a note of nervousness to it. Eli and Mason, the younger and the older brother respectively, were heading to a bar. But it wasn't just any bar - any of the bars in the city would have been perfectly acceptable for a nightly excursion. But not tonight. This bar existed far into the wastelands beyond the edges of their home city.

  
The upside of growing up in an unkempt neighborhood on the edges of town was that it was never closely monitored by the police, so they didn't often enforce who snuck out. Nonetheless, Eli and Mason knew very well that this was illegal and it only added to their apprehension. Though the apprehension was more on Mason's part. Eli was nervous, sure, but he was more than happy to take part in a little rebellion. And what fun it would be!

  
_It's just a shame Ollie couldn't make it_ , Eli thought. He was a popular guy among his insular, edge-of-the-wasteland society, and as such, he had a lot of friends, but none were quite so dear as Ollie, who was practically a part of the family.

  
"What are you thinking about?" Mason asked his younger brother, privy to the look of silent contemplation on his face.

  
"Oh, nothing really." Eli replied. "Just sucks that Ollie had to get sick is all."

  
"Oh, Christ. Like, I feel you, I love him dearly but what we're doing right now is dangerous."

  
"Yeah! Exactly why he wanted to go!"

  
"Yeah but knowing him, he'd crank up the danger factor tenfold with his dangerous personality."

  
"Psh, I guess." Eli conceded with an eye-roll. "You know, you'd be more fun if you were drinking tonight."

  
"But then who would drive your drunken ass home?" Mason asked.

  
"Still you!" Eli chuckled. "Dude, there's no police here, we can do what we want!"

  
"So you think drunk driving is only bad because you can get arrested for it?" Mason asked, to which Eli shrugged. "That's wicked stupid, dude."

  
"Whatever, man. The law is garbage anyway."

  
The two went on bickering for a good long while until finally, they got to the bar. They exited the car and went inside.

  
\----------

  
It didn't matter that Eli remained under Mason's watchful gaze, he still got utterly sloshed about an hour in. He found himself fraternizing even with the mean looking bar patrons that wanted nothing to do with the drunken city-boy.

  
And she was clearly no different.

  
There came a point where Eli unintentionally bumped into someone: a woman, much shorter than him. She wore a sleeveless hoodie that covered much of her head, but showed off her impressive, muscular arms. Three long scars ran diagonally down her freckled face. She whirled to face him, her mouth curled halfway into a snarl that caught even Eli off guard. Her bright yellow eyes glinted in the florescent bar lights.

  
"Whoops, sssorry!" Eli apologized loudly, grasping a nearby table to keep him from falling over.

  
"What the fuck is your problem, huh?" The woman growled, putting her fists up.

  
At this moment, Mason started to make his way across the bar. He had put up with a lot tonight, but he couldn't have his brother getting into a fight. Even Mason could see that this woman, short as she was, was built like a brick shithouse.

  
"I really am shorry," Eli slurred, a nervous grin on his face. "Hey, what's your name?"

  
"Oh. You're drunk. Of course." She remarked, surprisingly deadpan after her previous display. Her fists lowered but her eyes remained narrowed. She cocked her head slightly. "What's it to you?"

  
Eli, drunk as he was, could hardly bring himself to notice her obvious displeasure at his intrusion. Like an extravagent moron he pressed on with the pleasantries...or at least he would have, if Mason hadn't made his way over.

  
"Please don't mind my drunken idiot brother," Mason told the woman. With an aside to Eli, he continued. "We're going home. You've had enough."

  
As Mason ushered Eli away, Eli called back to the woman: "It was nice to meet you!" The woman stared back with a baffled expression.

  
"Fuckin city-folk."

  
\-----------

  
Though Eli bonked his head on the roof of the sedan on the way in, he needed no help, much to Mason's surprise. Lord knows he was drunk enough that it wouldn't be odd for him to have to help him into the car like a toddler.

  
"She was cool," Eli slurred. "I hope she thinks I'm cool."

  
"No offense, but I super doubt it." Mason replied. "She looked like she wanted to beat the shit out of you."

  
"Okay, so she was a liiiiiittle bit aggressive, but like...I dunno."

  
"She might've thought you were harassing her." Mason added.

  
At this, Eli whipped his head around to face his brother, an expression of horror plastered on his similarly plastered face.

  
"Oh fuck! Then we've gotta go back and apologize!" Eli exclaimed.

  
"Hey, relax. I don't know if that's what she thought." Mason tried to reassure his brother. "She was a wastelander, right? Probably best to leave her alone anyway."

  
"Man, you know how I feel about making a bad first impression..."

  
Mason didn't reply, and Eli decided not to press the issue any further. Truth is, it was kind of scary out there away from the safety of his hometown. The city generated plenty of rumors about life out in the wastelands - tales of murderers and slave traders. The lowest of the low, those who society rejected. Eli felt like he and his ilk were outsiders themselves, somewhat, so he had always assumed the rumors were likely propoganda. Sometimes he wondered if his own neighborhood would one day be abandoned to the wastes. It was certainly decrepit enough.

  
The two brothers were quiet for a bit, until finally the sedan was within radio signal of their city. They were close to home. Mason turned the news on like he always did, though it was never all that eventful.

  
Today was not one of those days.

  
_"We have reports of several break-ins along the West edge of Ridgemont, rumored to be the result of wastelanders entering the city. Investigations are underway."_

  
"That's not good," Mason remarked.

  
"Oh shiiiiit. Do you think we got hit?" Eli asked.

  
"I don't know. We better get back and find out. Make sure mom is safe."

  
The two brothers were alight with fresh apprehension as the car raced towards home. Somewhere deep down, Eli suspected that they were in the warpath. And with their mother home at the time...


	2. Arc 1 Chapter 2 - Tragedy Strikes

Eli and Mason finally arrived at home through the opening in the wall surrounding the city of Ridgemont. To their surprise, no police were there to see them enter.

  
_That's good news, at least._ Eli thought, finally sobering up with the combination of time and anxiety. _Maybe we didn't get hit._

  
"There aren't any other openings in the wall that I know of," Mason remarked, seemingly reading Eli's thoughts. "They had to have come in through here."

  
"Doesn't mean we got hit, though," Eli noted. "The cops have gotta be elsewhere. That's something!"

  
Mason said nothing. Eli somehow knew that his brother was too anxious not to fear the worst.

  
As they pulled into the driveway, they saw no sign of forced entry. Taking this as a good sign, Eli and Mason walked up to the front door and entered, realizing that it was unlocked, perhaps the whole time.

  
"Mom?" Eli called. "We heard there were break ins over here. Have you seen anything?"

  
There was no response.

  
"She might be sleeping," Mason offered hopefully, and Eli didn't know if that hopefulness was directed more towards himself or his brother. Eli couldn't see anything being wrong. The place was too quiet for anything to be amiss.

  
Eli and Mason went their separate ways, searching the house for any signs of trouble. Mason went through the kitchen while Eli went upstairs towards his mother's room. Eli saw that her door was open. This was odd. She never slept with her door open.

  
His heart beginning to thump loudly in his chest, he looked inside.

  
"Mom...?"

  
There he saw her, laying on the floor in a pool of what appeared to be her own blood.

  
Eli stood frozen in place, unable to comprehend the sight he was seeing before him. Not even his quick reflexes would spur him into quick action. He couldn't call out. He could scarcely breathe.

  
 _Oh no...oh god..._ He took a couple of shaky, robotic steps towards her and collapsed to his knees beside her. There he saw the wound...she had been shot in the head. She was really gone.

  
Tears started to pool in his eyes as he stared down at her in horror.

  
"ELI!"

  
Eli heard Mason's call and tore his eyes away from the sight of his mother, but out of the corner of his eye, he saw his mom's closet door open and a man step out with a gun. The man fired at Eli, but Eli saw it coming and moved out of the way before the gun fired.

  
There came another gunshot from behind him and the man fell dead. Eli whirled around to see Mason, holding a gun of his own, his breath coming in short gasps. Mason looked down to see his mother lying dead.

  
At that moment, strange voices could be heard from downstairs.

  
"We have to go. Get behind me." Mason choked out. With a tearful glance back at his mother, Eli followed his brother out of the room. They crept down the stairs, with Mason in the lead, gun in hand. Sure enough, there were two men creeping around, one holding a gun.

  
The stairs were a very short-lived hiding place and the brothers both knew it. Mason took aim at the man with a gun and fired. The man died right then and there, but the jig was up and, judging by the other voices outside, they were sorely outnumbered. Nonetheless, Mason pushed the other man out of the way of the door and fled towards the car with Eli in tow. He fired a couple of shots at the men who were beginning to make a run for the car as Eli got in. Once he was safely in, Mason got in, turned the car on, and floored it in reverse.

  
"We have to head towards the center of town." Mason croaked, still reeling with the horror of it all. "They'll be stopped dead there." Eli didn't respond. He could hardly speak at all and his eyes were still flooded with tears of both terror and grief. But even he could see that they were surrounded on that side with cars of their own. Some he recognized as cars from within his neighborhood. They had been stolen.

  
Mason seemed to realize this as soon as Eli did and floored it in the opposite direction. The only place with an opening was the gap in the wall surrounding Ridgemont. So that's where they went. Unfortunately, they were being followed.

  
The brothers sped out over the vast expanse of the wasteland with two cars full of men hot on their tails. The grass began to thin and a series of unnaturally large trees replaced them. Eli could only assume in his fear-stricken haze that this might be a good opportunity to shake them.

  
That is, until the car ran out of gas.

  
"Shit, shit, shit, SHIT." Mason muttered, each word louder than the last.

  
"What now?!" Eli cried, quite literally. Mason was quiet for a moment, until finally he spoke.

  
"I'll hold them off, you keep running, and don't look back."

  
Eli stared at his brother with dawning horror.

  
"You're coming with me, right?"

  
"I can't." Mason replied, his heart heavy. "They'll just run us down with their cars."

  
Eli sniffed audibly, tears running down his cheeks. He couldn't risk losing his brother...but what choice did he have? He would hardly be any good without a weapon.

  
Just then, the cars came screeching to a halt behind them. It was now or never. Choking out a sob, Eli ran, while Mason held his ground, gun in hand.

  
As Eli ran, he heard shot after shot ringing in his ears, spurring him further onward through the trees. Only when the shots finally stopped did Eli consider turning back.

  
_Mason said to run, though...but he's my brother! I need to know what happened!_

  
But Eli's legs carried him further forward, fearful of what lay behind him. Just then, a pit in front of him seemed to come out of nowhere and Eli was too distracted to notice it. The ground gave out under him and he was hurtling to the bottom. His last thought was of his brother and his mom as he hit the bottom and everything went dark.

  
\-----------

  
Four men lay dead at Mason's feet, and it took three men, still living, to hold him down. His nose was bloodied from the fight and from having to be subdued. At last, Mason had given up. He was at their mercy.

  
The final man, who's name, Mason heard, was Axel was calling someone on his phone. Mason waited with bated breath, though for what, he wasn't sure. A way out of this? His untimely demise? He had no idea. But the men holding him down were doing nothing but that. They seemed to be waiting on Axel to give them some sort of command.  
At last, Axel hung up his phone and placed it in his pocket. His next words had a peculiar sneer to them.

  
"Well, today's your lucky day, pretty boy. Maria's gonna want you."


	3. Arc 1 Chapter 3

The woman with the scarred face ran quickly through the underbrush. She had really done it now. She had gone and pissed off the wrong people. They were after her and the shitty gun she grabbed when leaving the house today just so happened to jam.

  
They were slavers, she thought. Filthy fucking animals that deserved to be put down. But she was just one person. Were her family there, they could have split them into groups and dispatched them quietly. But she got ambitious. She thought she could take them on her own. Maybe she could have, but she got careless. She was slowly going stir-crazy on her own, without the presence of her family, and foolish mistakes were inevitable.

  
Problem is, those mistakes could be fatal. They could decide to kill her just as easily as they could enslave her.

  
 _They'll have to kill me, if they're smart._ She thought. Then again, she feared her family would never forgive her for dying so carelessly. And so she grappled with the idea of giving herself up so she could inevitably break out later.

  
Yeah...fat chance. She wasn't getting caught. And she was itching for a good fight.

  
She dove beneath the underbrush and lay in wait. This was gonna be interesting.

  
As the first one arrived on the scene, the scarred woman tripped him. Dragging him into her hiding place like a trapdoor spider, she slashed his throat with a deft strike from her karambit. Then, she took his gun.

  
Alas, several of the slavers who followed him heard the commotion. The woman knew this, but how many could there be? She was trained for this. She would survive the resulting shootout and walk home unscathed.

  
The woman left her hiding spot and began firing on her attackers before they could even fire a shot. One by one they dropped dead. But then, one by one, more kept reappearing. The woman snarled her frustrations and continued firing. Noises began to surround her, a rustling in the bushes all around her.

  
It was then that she realized she was surrounded. She looked back and forth at the encroaching slavers with a mounting sense of unease. Their guns were trained on her. With a growl, she tried to fire one last shot, only to find the gun was out of ammo.

  
She was trapped. She wondered internally if she was ready to die like she was so clearly going to. But one of the men stepped forward, a smarmy look on his face.

  
"Well, well, well. If it isn't the wicked witch of the wastelands. What do they call you, anyway? Kara? Kira?"

  
The woman, daring as ever, chose that moment to spit directly in his face. Nonchalantly, he wiped it off, and with a snap of his fingers, she was struck in the back of the head with the gun of the person directly behind her. The woman saw stars as she fell. The last thing she registered was a chain tied around her wrists.

  
And then she was out.


	4. Arc 1 Chapter 4

It took what felt like ages, but Eli managed to climb up and out of the chasm. Nothing really hurt except for his head...and his heart. As he stumbled out of the hole, he thought of Mason and his mom.

  
 _Mason!_ He thought. He had to go back! He had to see what had become of his brother! But he was so disoriented by the unfamiliar surroundings that he didn't know where to go. Having nothing else to do, and with a mounting sense of alarm, he picked a direction and started walking. It was daylight, so he'd have no problem seeing his way around. And maybe he wouldn't run into any weird predators. He had no idea what he'd find out here.

  
Eli walked for a day. Hungry, tired, and aching, he had nothing much to do but walk. Anxiously, he hoped he'd find something. Literally anything but just more trees. Finally, he came across what looked like an abandoned building, way in the distance. It was yet another unfamiliar structure to Eli, but perhaps he could get to the top of it and get a sense of where he was.

  
\----------

  
The scarred woman woke up chained to a chair, hardly able to move. Her head hurt like hell, but not quite as bad as her pride. The indignity of it all stung like she wouldn't have dared to believe. But there was something else there too...a sense of primal fear. She quietly assessed herself, hoping for the best, not daring to assume the worst.

  
Fortunately, she felt fine. Mostly fine.

  
It wasn't long before she realized there were others in the room with her.

  
"Oh, you're awake!" the man who had orchestrated the woman's capture remarked. Without warning, he slapped her. The woman hardly winced, and the fresh sting in her face only made her angrier.

  
"You little SHIT." The man spat. "Do you know how many good men I've lost to you today? Do you even care?"

  
"Couldn't say." The woman replied coldly. "I lost count."

  
"I bet you think you're real cute."

  
"Compared to your mug, probably."

  
The man tilted her head up and his touch infuriated her. He held a knife to her throat.

  
"Do you know how easy it would be to spill your blood all over the floor right now?" The woman realized that the man was very obviously trying to intimidate her. But she wouldn't crack. She stared back at him with such ferocity in her yellow eyes that there was no mistaking the hatred she felt. She knew that, like a dog behind a fence, he was only safe from her because she was immobilized. But if she could get her hands on him...

  
She'd tear him to shreds.

  
Realizing with a snort that he wouldn't get the fear he wanted out of her, the man pulled back.

  
"Whatever. If I can't crack you, I know _she_ will." The man said.

  
The woman didn't need to ask who she was, and though she didn't show it, the thought struck a nerve with her.

  
Satisfied with his gloating, the man commanded another of the slavers to hit her in the face with the butt of his gun and knocked her out.

  
\-----------

  
Eli made pushed open the door to the building and quickly realized he wasn't alone. There was a moment of silence as Eli stared at two men, who turned to look at him.

  
Before Eli could speak, there was a cry from behind him.

  
"Get him!"

  
Eli saw one of the men raise a gun towards him. Thinking fast, Eli grabbed the nearest object - a rock - and chucked it at him. It hit its target as the gun fired, and instead of the bullet hitting his head, it embedded itself in Eli's leg. Eli gave a pained cry and attempted to run towards the nearest hallway with the men chasing after him. Adrenaline numbing the pain, Eli barely managed to outrun the men, entered the first door he could find, and slammed the door shut behind him. He threw a heavy table in front of it and assessed his surroundings.

  
Tied to a chair in the middle of the room, he saw a familiar figure. She appeared to be out cold.

  
Eli saw her and assumed that she was caught just like he was. Maybe she had fallen victim to the men.

  
_Right...there are slavers out here..._

  
Eli felt a pang of distress on her behalf. He had to help her!

  
He ran up to the woman and unclasped the chains that were holding her, unwrapping them from her body until she was finally free.

  
But instead of slumping to the ground like he expected, she sprung from the chair. Eli's superhuman reflexes allowed him to prepare a defense against her incoming attack. He tried to hold her arm back as it was poised, karambit in hand, to slash his throat, and he realized with a panicked start that he wouldn't be able to prevent this.

  
But then she stopped, her snarl wavering, as she got a good look at Eli's face.

  
"You?" She exclaimed. Eli nodded nervously. It really was her! The woman from the other night! Who had just tried to kill him!

  
The woman stepped back, her eyes reflecting confusion rather than the viciousness she had just now displayed.

  
"Why are you here?" She interrogated, a suspicious tone in her voice.

  
"I - er - that's a really long story! We need to get out of here!" Eli exclaimed as loud pounding and shouting resounded from the barricaded door. Eli found he could hardly blame the woman for the attack. Who knew what she had been through? How could she have known he was here to help and not to hurt?

  
The woman looked around and found a high window and some boxes.

  
"You can climb those." She remarked.

  
"But what about you?"

  
"I have something to take care of first." The way the scarred woman spat out the words made Eli think this had something to do with revenge. Heeding her words, Eli began climbing boxes. It would be a long fall down, but it was better than dying in there.

  
He tumbled out the window painfully, but was able to stand up and limp quickly up the hill surrounding the facility. There, he stopped and waited instead of running away. He needed to make sure the woman got out okay.

  
Soon enough, the woman sprung herself out of the building and broke into a brisk jog up the hill. Eli wondered why she didn't feel the need to move faster. At the top of the hill, she stopped and turned around, standing stock still. There was a moment where Eli didn't know what was happening.

  
Then came the explosion, and the facility was alight. The woman stood there and watched the burning glow as it engulfed the entire building, starting with the room where she was held captive. There was no question that everyone in that building was now dead.

  
Eli could only stare in a mixture of shock and wonder. Just then, the woman turned around to see Eli fully.

  
"You're still here?" She asked bluntly.

  
"I...I wanted to make sure you got out." Eli replied earnestly. "Are you okay?"

  
The woman stared back at him, the question noticeably giving her pause.

  
"As ever...I guess." The two stared at each other long enough for Eli to start feeling awkward. Finally, she looked down at his wounded leg.

  
"That'll get infected if you don't take care of it, you know." She remarked, pointing at the wound.

  
"Shit...you're probably right."

  
"I am."

  
"Where am I gonna find a doctor out here?" The woman cocked her head slightly.

  
"You won't," the woman replied. Eli felt his heart sink. Of course he wouldn't. He would surely die out here of infection if nothing else got him first. Eli felt tears well up in his eyes. This was the last thing he needed. The scarred woman, meanwhile, seemed to be deliberating. Until finally...

  
"Well...let's go then." The woman said. This snapped Eli out of his funk, just slightly.

  
"But where though?"

  
"Where else? We're going to my place." The woman replied. "It won't be pretty but I can get that leg taken care of."

  
"Really?" This brightened Eli's mood dramatically. He only needed to wander the wastelands for a day to meet a friendly and familiar face, relatively speaking.

  
"Don't make me regret it or we'll have a problem." The woman retorted. Eli shut up after that...except there was one thing he still wanted to know.

  
"Hey, what's your name?" He asked. "Mine's Eli."

  
The woman was quiet for a moment, like she wasn't sure she wanted to divulge that information. Until finally she spoke.

  
"It's Kaira." 


	5. Arc 1 Chapter 5

"Kaira. It's nice to meet you!"

  
"We already met, remember?"

  
"Yeah, but that doesn't count. I was drunk as shit. Sorry about that, by the way."

  
"It's fine. Why are you out here, anyway?" Kaira asked.

  
Eli paused for a moment. He wasn't sure he wanted to relive his story by having to tell it. And he wasn't sure he wanted to risk breaking down in front of her, but he figured that not telling it would only make her distrust him more. So he took a deep breath and began.

  
"That night at the bar...when my brother and I were coming home, we heard a radio broadcast from Ridgemont talking about wastelander break-ins on the West edge of town. That's where we live. When we got home...we found our mom. She was dead." Eli paused and took another breath to keep himself from crying. He felt like he could still see her there, clear as day. He glanced at Kaira and found the expression on her face to be...emotionless. Eli pressed on.

  
"There was a shootout between my brother and the wastelanders that were still in the neighborhood, but we got away in our car through the gap in the wall. They followed us though, and eventually the car ran out of gas. Mason stayed behind and told me to run. I didn't want to, but I didn't feel like I had a choice. I thought I could just go back for him when the shooting stopped, but I fell in a ravine and woke up the next day."

  
"Where's your brother now?" Kaira asked.

  
"I have no idea. I couldn't find my way back, and when I looked, I only found the building where they were keeping you. I-I don't even know if he's still alive or not." Then, Eli came up with an idea. "Maybe if I could get home, I could retrace my steps and figure out where he is! You know the way to that bar, right? Can you help me get there?"

  
"I can. But you won't make it if you don't get that leg taken care of. It's at least a few days' walk." Kaira replied, her affect as flat as Eli sort of expected. Eli felt relatively content with her answer, though it was gonna take longer than he hoped. He thought to ask one last question as the two of them walked.

  
"Do you...know what might have happened to my brother?"

  
Kaira was quiet for a moment, and Eli wondered with a sick feeling in his chest what her answer might be.

  
"I see three choices: either he's dead, he's captured by god knows who, or he got away. And I don't know how good he is with a gun."

  
"So...that's a two-thirds chance that he's alive, right?"

  
"The numbers depend on a lot. They depend on who was chasing him and for what end, and how good he is with a gun."

  
"Well," Eli started. "Mason used to go shooting every Saturday, so pretty good, I'd say. And I have no idea who was chasing us and why. I sort of just assumed they were common criminals."

  
"I don't think so. If they had the gall to break into a walled city, they were either really stupid or really calculated."

  
Eli felt a sinking feeling in his chest. He desperately hoped it was the former.

  
"And if it's the second option?" Eli asked.

  
"Then they're probably gonna want your brother for their own ends, depending on how much worth they see in him."

  
On one hand, Eli was elated at the idea that his brother might still be alive. On the other...what could they possibly want with him?

  
The trip to Kaira's place was quiet for a bit, even after Eli finished running through scenarios in his head. It started to become awkward, so he asked her a question.  
"So why were you at that bar the other night?"

  
"What's it matter?" Kaira asked in return. Eli was caught a little off guard by the edge in her tone, but he could also swear that she looked somewhat embarrassed.  
"I was just curious, is all. You don't have to answer if you don't want to." Eli replied. Kaira was quiet for a moment after this.

  
"Alright, whatever." She conceded. "I was looking for a fight."

  
Kaira's answer, though it caught him off guard, made sense to Eli. That would explain his foggy memories of her stalwart aggression towards him.

  
"Oh. Haha, why?"

  
"None of your business why." She snapped. "We're here."

  
Eli looked around, but couldn't see any structures that would indicate a house. It wasn't until Kaira pushed back some bushes to reveal a ladder. Only when Eli looked up could he see what looked like a cabin in a tree, no doubt the coolest treehouse he had ever seen, despite its simplicity. But the fact remained, this would be a hard feat to accomplish with his wounded leg. Kaira didn't wait up and started climbing with a deftness that suggested she'd done this a million times.

  
Eli struggled on his bum leg to get up the ladder, but when he eventually succeeded, he saw the cabin in its full glory. It was a dingy brown of faintly rotted wood, and with an unfenced balcony overlooking the rest of the forest. Eli took note of how high up they were and wondered if this was entirely safe.

  
Kaira was facing away from Eli, but he could see by the tension in her shoulders that she was deeply unsure about something, although Eli couldn't figure out what.  
She went into another room while Eli wondered about the etiquette of it all: should he sit down? What was the protocol out here in the wastelands? He certainly didn't want to be rude by just...making himself at home. This wasn't his home. This was a strange treehouse in a strange and dangerous place and his host was a strange and dangerous woman. Eli began to feel unsettled just by looking around. The walls were adorned with various weapons, from guns to blades, from the practical to the extravagant. The place felt more like a militaristic bunker than a home. it was all a tad frightening to Eli. But he would get this over with, find out what happened to his brother, and go home and he could put this whole horrible mess behind him.

  
Kaira returned with a bottle and a large shot glass full of what Eli figured out to be whiskey.

  
"You're gonna wanna be drunk for this. This isn't gonna be fun."

  
Apprehensive but compliant, Eli took the glass from her and took a seat on the couch.

  
"So...what's this entail?" He asked nervously. Kaira said nothing, but pulled out a strip of leather and what looked like an industrial pair of tweezers. Eli felt the blood drain from his face. There was no way she was gonna be digging around the wound to find the bullet! But Eli knew that's exactly what she was going to do. She had to, but this was gonna suck.

  
With a shaky hand, Eli downed the shot glass.

  
"I'm gonna need more than this." He stated.

  
"I figured." Kaira replied flatly. Eli found she was frustratingly placid about the whole matter. Like she didn't care what she was about to put him through. But what could Eli have expected from a wastelander?

  
Eli downed several more shots and successfully got himself drunk enough that he wondered if he would pass out. But as he started to drift, without warning, a searing pain went shooting up his injured leg.

  
"Ow! Fuck!" He shouted, sitting up straight and flopping back down onto the couch.

  
"Hold still, fucker!" Kaira hissed. "How much damage do you want me to do? I almost had it!"

  
Sober Eli would have shrank back from her reprimanding, but drunk Eli was clearly feeling feisty.

  
"Could you make it not hurt so bad?! Shit!"

  
"Look, buddy. I told you this was gonna suck. I can give you more whiskey, but beyond that, you're gonna have to suck it the fuck up unless you want to die of an infection. Now do you want this bullet out of your leg or not?"

  
Eli glared back at her petulantly, but placed the strip of leather in his mouth and crossed his arms. Kaira rolled her eyes, but took this as a go-ahead.

  
Eli bit down hard on the leather as Kaira resumed her digging. The pain was only made more bearable by Eli's level of drunkenness, but even that could only help so much. For what felt like eons, Kaira dug until finally, she pulled out the bloody bullet from his leg. Without so much as another word, she wrapped his bleeding leg in gauze and stood up.

  
"You're done. Congratulations."

  
"THANK you." Eli slurred grumpily. If she was gonna be an asshole, then he was gonna be one right back.

  
"You know, any time I wanted, I could throw your ass right off that balcony." Kaira threatened. "So if I were you, I'd be a little bit more grateful."

  
"Why're you being a dick?" Eli asked. "I've not been anything but nice to you!"

  
"What, so you think I owe you something just because you were nice to me?"

  
"That's not what I said! I'm just suggesting you be a little nicer to me, since I, you know, saved your life?"

  
Kaira's eyes flashed hotly at this.

  
"Listen up, fucker. I'm gonna talk real nice and slow so that you understand me. We are not friends. You got me out of a bind, sure, and in return, I took the bullet out of your leg, and starting tomorrow I'll be escorting your sorry ass back to the bar where I found you. But that's. It. I'm _suggesting_ that you take what you're being given without expecting any special treatment. I can, and will, rescind my offer at any time and you'll be on your own. And buddy, I don't like those odds for you."

  
With that, Kaira turned and stalked off. Eli never liked being reprimanded, and he liked it even less while drunk. He tried to hide the way he sniffled at her words and curled up alone on the couch for the night.


	6. Arc 1 Chapter 6

Even though Eli slept the whole night through, Kaira didn't get a wink of sleep. She didn't trust anyone but those closest to her, and the thought of having a perfect stranger in her home was unsettling. Sure, he was a defenseless city boy, but Kaira still wouldn't let her defenses slip. Any idiot could steal a knife or a gun, and she'd be fucked if she were asleep.

  
Kaira sat on the balcony, whittling a branch when a transmission came in from the old radio.

  
_"We're calling for a region-wide manhunt. A man and a woman escaped yesterday from the Bittern compound, killing one of Maria's generals via explosives in the process. The first suspect is a usual one, a woman by the name of Kaira. She's around 5'2", East Asian in appearance, has brown hair, yellow eyes, and facial scars. Her usual family was nowhere to be seen. The second suspect is a man of unknown name and origin. Looks to be Filipino, about 6' even, black hair and red eyes. Any sighting of either or both of these suspects is to be reported to high command immediately. We don't know about the man, but Kaira is armed and dangerous."_

  
Kaira sat there in dumbstruck shock.

  
"A fucking general?" She asked aloud. "Shit. Shit, shit, shit."

  
This wasn't good. If she wasn't already wanted by Maria and her cohorts by virtue of being part of Joe's family, she definitely was now. Kaira had fucked up big. Worse yet, she may have put her family in danger

  
And Eli...this meant he was stuck. Kaira knew that alone, she could get herself out of a bind or die trying. She had spent the last ten years of her life training for exactly that. But Eli was dead weight. Kaira sighed. This was gonna be a long wait.

  
\-------------

  
Eli woke eventually, his head pounding from a hangover. He wondered if he was in any condition to make the trip home, but he figured Kaira wouldn't bother waiting. She clearly wanted him gone as badly as he wanted to be. He wondered about Ollie, his best friend. He wished he could call or text, but he didn't have signal. Ollie was probably worried sick right now, and Eli wished he could console him.

  
_I can't think about that now. All he has to wait is a few days, and then he'll know I'm fine._

  
_...But Mason, though..._

  
Tears started to well in his eyes at the thought of his brother, who's fate he had little idea of. Then he thought of his mom. He wondered if Ollie would be as devastated as he was about the loss.

  
"Rise and shine." Kaira said, appearing from seemingly out of nowhere. "I've got some shitty news."

  
 _God, what could be worse than the way things already are?_ Eli thought to himself.

  
"What is it?" Eli asked groggily.

  
"Just received a radio transmission. There's a region-wide manhunt. Our local warlord is looking for us, specifically."

  
"What?" Eli asked with a start. "Why?"

  
Kaira looked away as if she were beating herself up internally. Then she answered.

  
"Apparently, I blew up one of the warlord's generals."

  
Eli sat there, mouth parted in shock. It was one thing to be chased by common thieves and murderers, but to be hunted by a wastelander with an army's power at their disposal? This was terrifying!

  
"So, what does this mean for me?" Eli asked.

  
"Well, you have two options. You can try your luck out there alone, or you can stay here till the manhunt lifts." Kaira replied. "Take your pick."

  
"You mean if I go, you can't come with me?"

  
"Nope. No offense, but while I'm fighting off the warlord's armies, you'll be dead weight. I don't like those odds for either of us."

  
 _Jesus, how am I supposed to not take offense?_ Eli thought. But the fact remained, Eli realized, that she was right. He had never even fired a gun before.

  
"How long do you think it'll last?" Eli asked. "The manhunt, I mean."

  
"Indefinitely, I'm sure. That bitch is notorious for drawing out the process. We could be waiting months to years."

  
"But, there's gotta be another way, right?" Then Eli had an idea. "What if you taught me how to shoot? Maybe I'd stand a better chance?"

  
Kaira cocked her head at the idea, but seemed to be mulling it over.

  
"Look," Eli said. "I know you don't want me to be here any longer than I have to: I don't want that either! But even if I'm here a while, I don't have to be here as long as I could be!" Eli also realized how easy it would be for Kaira to outright refuse and kick him out on the spot. He wondered, especially after last night, if he was overstepping his bounds - if he was asking too much.

  
But Kaira seemed to have other plans.

  
"That could work." She stated simply, and Eli breathed a sigh of relief. But then Kaira continued. "But there's just one thing." She looked into his eyes very seriously, her eyes like chips of ice.

  
"Do you have what it takes to take a life?" She asked.

  
The question threw Eli off for a moment. Surely he couldn't, right? But then he thought of Mason, terrified out of his wits and still willing to do whatever it took to protect him. And he thought of his mother, murdered in cold blood. If Eli could have done anything to prevent it, at any cost, he would have. In a heartbeat.

  
And so Eli stared back at Kaira and nodded. This seemed to satisfy her. Immediately, she looked away and said simply:

  
"Then we start tomorrow. Take today to rest. You're gonna need it."


	7. Arc 1 Chapter 7

Every day for a week did Kaira take Eli out shooting. She found that he was actually pretty good at it. Even a moving target, usually a deer of some sort, was no match for him. Talk was scarce, as Eli didn't know what to say and Kaira didn't say much. She offered little but tips on how to improve. But as Eli shot each animal, even for food, he found he felt a little sick at the thought of having to take a human life.

  
"People are just animals. Remember that." Kaira would say whenever he brought up his concerns. But it did little to quell the feeling. He knew in his heart that this wasn't quite true. But what could he say in response? He had agreed to this. And every time he thought of his brother or his mom, he felt invigorated to do what he felt he needed to, even when it sucked. It wasn't long before Eli became just a little bit tired of having to think about death.

  
"Death is all around us. Best get used to it." Kaira would say. None of it particularly helped.

  
One day, Kaira decided to see how Eli would fare in close-range combat.

  
"Keep your center of gravity low, and punch through your target rather than stopping at your target."

  
Eli stared down the punching bag on the balcony of the treehouse. Determined to impress, but feeling a little silly at the same time, he threw a couple punches at the bag.  
"See, you're holding back." Kaira remarked. "Your opponents won't. Try again."

  
A bead of sweat ran down Eli's face. Obviously he'd know what to do in the moment, right? Surely this wasn't necessary? He threw a couple more punches at the bag. This didn't seem to satisfy Kaira.

  
"Okay, how bout this: picture the fuckers who killed your mom. What do you want to do to them?"

  
So Eli did as she asked. He made up a face in his head, what he imagined the person who killed his mother must've looked like. He pictured the face that showed up in the closet, holding the gun that killed his mom. He was dead now, but he must've been the culprit. In that moment, Eli felt anger and grief like he'd never felt before.

  
So he drew back, and let loose with a savage snarl, imagining that he was striking down the man responsible for his mother's demise. His fists ached as the bag swayed to and fro with the force of it.

  
"That's it." Kaira remarked. "From now on, every sorry motherfucker you face down is the one who killed your mom. But the question remains...can you take a punch?"

  
Eli took a breath. He'd been in a scrap or two in his life, but he'd never actually been hit. That was his thing! He could dodge anything. In that moment an idea came to Eli's mind. He'd make an ass of the teacher, there was no way she'd see it coming.

  
"I wouldn't know," Eli replied innocently.

  
"You're about to." Kaira replied, the picture of placidity, putting up her fists. "Hold still. Don't worry, I'll go easy on you at first."

  
But as she went to deck him in the face, he saw it coming and dodged.

  
"Sorry, reflexes," he replied with a grin. Kaira snorted, clearly unamused.

  
"Do you wanna take this seriously, or not?"

  
"Right, go ahead."

  
But as Kaira threw another punch, Eli dodged it just as deftly.

  
"Haha, crazy right?" Eli asked.

  
"So that's how you're gonna play it, huh?"

  
"'Fraid so."

  
There was a pause, but only for a moment. In a blink of an eye. Kaira's eyes flashed and she was throwing punches left and right. Eli saw all of them coming, of course, but they came at such an intensity that even Eli was struggling to keep up. His reflexes were fast - beyond fast - but he could only move so quickly. She was throwing him off his groove.  
The last punch was one that he saw coming, but it was coming in faster and harder than Eli could even fathom. Panicked, he threw himself to the balcony floor.

  
To Eli's shock, Kaira's fist met the bag and tore straight through it. Little plastic beads spilled out all over the floor. Eli was stunned, he never even imagined that was possible. And then he imagined that same power coming at him like a freight train and the blood drained from his face. He couldn't even speak. So he just stared, mouth agape.

  
Kaira looked faintly surprised, like she didn't expect to let herself go that forcefully. But Eli found she didn't look that surprised. She pulled her arm out of the bag and a cascade of beads went spilling to the floor.

  
"So your reflexes are fast." She said. "But there are faster opponents."

  
"You could have killed me!" Eli exclaimed.

  
"Yeah. I could've. Do what I say next time. We're done for the day."

  
Eli never thought he'd find himself being the protagonist of some fucked up rendition of The Karate Kid, but here he was. And he never tested Kaira like that again.


	8. Arc 1 Chapter 8

Another week had passed. Things were still chilly between Kaira and Eli, but Eli realized partway through that he would be better off getting on Kaira's good side. Who knew, maybe he could end up bringing the humanity out of her. Because right now she was cold and hard as a corpse.

  
And in addition, she didn't seem to be getting any sleep whatsoever. Sometimes Eli would catch her nodding off in the middle of the day when she wasn't training him to be the cold-blooded killer that she was. He would ask if everything was alright, and she would lie and say "yep, fine." Eli didn't want to invoke her wrath by pushing her, and so he'd leave it be. Kaira seemed...mildly appreciative. Eli was starting to pick up tiny cues here and there from her, signals of appreciation and displeasure. He was starting to get used to her, and evidently, she was getting somewhat used to him. But something was always amiss. She was cold and flat and distrustful always. It was maddening.

  
But something changed one day - a hunting trip gone wrong.

  
"There." Kaira said, pointing at a deer. Kaira's senses were sharp, no doubt from years of living in the wasteland...alone? Eli wasn't sure about that one. There were two bedrooms in the cabin: a master bedroom and a room with three beds. Eli slept on the couch as a show of good faith, but the question remained, did Kaira ever live with anyone? What happened to them?

  
Eli took aim with the silenced sniper rifle and fired. As usual, he could track the deer's movements in advance and the kill was clean. Kaira offered no words of encouragement except for a nod. Eli was used to taking that at that point, and so he asked for little else.

  
A noise surfaced then, just east of the deer carcass. Eli assumed it was more deer, but Kaira seemed slightly more alarmed. She pulled out her pistol.

  
"Get behind me." She whispered urgently. "Might be trouble."

  
Eli did as instructed, and the two of them waited and watched. Everything was quiet for a moment until...

  
"There they are!" Cried a voice. At that moment, a swath of slavers came out from all around them and Kaira was firing into the hoard.

  
"Dead or alive, boys! Remember that!" One of the men shouted with a laugh, training his gun on Kaira.

  
Eli knew he had to act fast, so he took aim at the man and fired without thinking. The shot devastated the man's head and he was gone. Eli had killed someone.

  
Soon, both Kaira and Eli were firing onto the men. Bullets whizzed past their heads, only adding to Eli's adrenaline. But as long as he could see who was firing, he could dodge them with ease. Luckily, not many of them were great shots.

  
Soon, none remained. The fight was over.

  
"I'll be damned," Kaira started. "You were actually pretty good out there."

  
Just then, Eli could see a gun raise from one of the bodies, aimed directly at Kaira.

  
"MOVE!" He yelled. There was a fleeting moment - maybe a quarter of a second - where Kaira only stared back at him with dawning confusion. That was all it took. The shot was fired, and Kaira slammed into the ground, blood leaking from her head. The man who fired the shot died shortly after.

  
"Fuck!" Eli bent down to look at Kaira, horror in his gaze. The bullet hit her right in the side of the head. There was no doubt she was dead, but Eli couldn't believe it. And he was right not to.

  
Kaira gasped, rolled over, and sat up, her eyes wide. This startled the shit out of Eli, who yelped in response.

  
With a shaking hand, Kaira touched the spot where the wound was, and produced a crushed bullet. Eli realized then that the bullet didn't even penetrate her skull. But how was that possible?

  
"Holy shit...I thought you were dead!" Eli breathed. He could see, for the first time, that her eyes were alight with utter shock. She stared down at her hands, which trembled violently. And Eli realized in that moment that her cold, calculated act was just that - an act. She looked just as scared as he felt.

  
"Me too..." She murmured quietly. Their eyes met, sharing a moment of abject shock and terror at what had just transpired. And then Kaira stood up and Eli was in too much shock to help her. Thankfully she didn't need it, though her legs still shook. Eli waited there for some sort of explanation. Thankfully, Kaira's nerves made her more talkative.

  
"I've been like this my whole life and I never even knew it..."

  
"Like what?" Eli asked. Kaira took a shaky breath.

  
"I've always been stronger and faster than anybody I ever knew. That's my mutation. But in all my years of doing this, of getting hurt over and over again, I've never broken a bone." She held up the bullet. "This must be why."

  
"So...your bones are just..."

  
"Too dense." Kaira finished. Then she gave a short laugh, clearly still reeling from the revelation. It was the first time Eli had ever seen her smile. Despite the circumstances, it was nice.

  
"You're invincible!" Eli smiled. And just like that, her smile was gone. Eli already missed it.

  
"Well, probably not. Can't assume that, or the next thing I know I'll get myself killed."

  
"I guess you're right," Eli conceded. "But still, that's a cool ability."

  
Kaira nodded contentedly, but her smile never returned.

  
\----------

  
As they made their way back to the treehouse, deer meat in tow, Eli began to think and feel sick. He had killed someone, several people, today. Soon he fell behind and started retching. Kaira stared back at him, her eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

  
"What's wrong with you?" came the question after he was done throwing up. Though blunt, there was no malice in her words.

  
"I killed people today," Eli stated simply after catching a couple breaths. "I'm still fucked up about it."

  
Eli expected Kaira to reprimand him, to say he was being weak and that he should have never left the city. But much to his surprise, she looked...actually sympathetic. Eli noticed that she stared through him for a moment, as if she were remembering something, and then back at him.

  
"The first time's never easy." She stated quietly. "I'm sorry."

  
Eli faintly wondered if the shot to her head rattled her brains or something. Today was clearly a day of firsts for the two of them, because he had never fathomed she could sound this gentle. A moment of silence went by as they continued walking.

  
"...What was your first time like?" Eli asked gently. "If you don't mind me asking."

  
Kaira's next words had an edge to them that suggested she was remembering some unspeakable horror.

  
"...The bastard had it coming," was all she said, and Eli didn't ask her to elaborate.


	9. Arc 1 Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trigger Warning for this chapter: Date rape mention/Child sexual abuse mention

Another uneventful week had passed and Kaira was back to her old self. Well, more or less. She seemed slightly gentler, especially when Eli started having nightmares. She knew it was happening because, still, she hardly slept. Sometimes Eli would wake in a cold sweat and find her there.

  
"It's just a dream," She'd remark, austere as ever. "It's not real."

  
Eli didn't need to be told this, he knew it was true and still it fucked him up. But regardless, he was willing to take any amount of reassurance he would get out of her. God, he missed people. Kaira was hardly good company compared to what he was used to, but slowly and surely, things were getting better between the two of them.

  
"So..." He began one night over dinner on the balcony. "Why aren't you sleeping?"

  
"What's it matter?" Kaira replied without looking at him.

  
"It's just...you look exhausted. Like any moment you're gonna keel over."

  
Kaira gave a snort.

  
"What, are you worried about me now or something?" She asked sarcastically.

  
"Actually, yeah. Kinda." Eli replied truthfully. "You didn't look like this when I first met you. Is this just...a thing you do or is there something else?"

  
Kaira was quiet for a moment before answering.

  
"I'm gonna level with you. You might have noticed, but I don't trust strangers."

  
"Am I still a stranger, though? We've been together for...weeks now, I guess. I figured you'd trust me at least a little by now."

  
"You obviously don't know me that well, then."

  
"Well, yeah," Eli replied. "You never open up about anything." Kaira shrugged in response.

  
"Why don't you trust strangers?" Eli asked. He saw the look on Kaira's face and continued. "I mean, I understand why you don't trust other wastelanders, but I figure city-folk are more...respectable, no offense."

  
"That isn't even remotely true," Kaira replied with a subtle sneer. "City-folk are fucking terrible. They sit there in their cozy little suburban homes and pretend that everything is alright, even when it's not. And if you step out of line, they throw you to the wastes like trash. They don't even bother to kill you first, because they think they're 'respectable', but they'll cast you out to your death anyway and pat themselves on the back for doing it. They don't give a shit about you or me or anyone but themselves."

  
Eli was a little taken aback by her harsh criticism. At first he was offended, but then something struck him as odd.

  
"That was...oddly specific."

  
Kaira's eyes widened a little as she realized how much she had revealed about herself, as if she'd made some grand faux pas. Eli stared back at her, hoping she'd elaborate. Finally, he asked the question.

  
"You...you used to live in the city, didn't you? Was it Ridgemont?"

  
"...No. Ridgemont is too ritzy, or so I hear. I lived in Cranston, the only place in the world that's worse than here."

  
"And how long have you been out here?"

  
"Probably ten years."

  
"And how old are you?"

  
"...I'm pretty sure I'm 23. You lose count of the years out here."

  
This took Eli by surprise, not only because she was revealing so much, but because he'd assumed by the aged look on her face that she was at least a decade older. He was young, too, but she was still a couple years younger. The thought was weird to think about.

  
"So I take it you were kicked out?" Eli asked. "What for?"

  
Kaira began to look uncomfortable, but she answered the question anyway.

  
"I killed the chief of police. The town didn't want me lingering around after that."

  
Eli recalled what Kaira had said a week prior, when he killed his first person. The first one is never easy. No wonder! She was only a child!

  
"Why'd you do it?" was all Eli could ask. Kaira's eyebrows furrowed, her mouth formed a straight line.

  
"Like I said. The bastard had it coming." She replied tersely. "Now no more questions."

  
Eli was quiet. Her answer was curiously vague, and he couldn't figure out what would spur a thirteen year old to kill someone intentionally. Unless the police chief did something unspeakably terrible.

  
It reminded him of something. No, of someone. Someone he wasn't sure he even wanted to talk about. It made his heart thump harder in his chest when he thought about _her_. Was it worth bringing up on the off chance that Kaira would talk?

  
"I...I kinda get what you mean about city-folk. I've certainly met some bad ones." Eli started. Kaira didn't reply, so Eli continued.

  
"I had something pretty bad happen to me a few years back. I was drunk and I shouldn't have trusted this woman...but...what are you gonna do, right?"

  
At this point Kaira turned to look at him, her expression unreadable. Eli continued.

  
"I thought she was my friend, and I knew she had a little bit of a crush on me, but I didn't expect her to - to take it so far. She waited until I was black-out drunk and then she...anyway..."

  
Eli was looking down at his feet and not at Kaira, who's expression was becoming increasingly intense.

  
"I had a lot...A LOT...of people tell me that I should've enjoyed it, but how could I? Number one, I wasn't even awake, and number two...it just felt like a betrayal, you know? It made me sick. So I cut those people off, and this woman keeps turning up at inopportune times and places. I can't shake her..." 

  
Eli trailed off with a sideways glance at Kaira. He did a quick double-take when he saw that her hands were balled into tight, trembling fists. Her expression seethed with both horror and unfathomable rage. Eli worried that it was directed at him, but then she spoke. Her words were quiet, but hatred dripped from every syllable.

  
"First of all, that wretched excuse of a woman needs to be lying dead in a meteor crater, and if you can only _point_ me in the right direction, I can, and _will_ make it happen."

  
Eli was shocked at her sudden ferocity. Her eyes flashed with bloodlust for a moment, and then her expression became deadly serious.

  
"Second, I need you to understand that what she did is not. Your. Fault. That's bullshit. And anyone I see peddling that garbage is gonna get the bullet too. And I'm not even gonna _address_ the idea that you should have enjoyed it."

  
Eli stared back, somewhat dumbfounded. He didn't expect Kaira to be the type to have such a strong opinion on all this. But at the same time, it reminded him of his friend Ollie. Ollie had handled it well when Eli told him about it, but he seemed to share the sentiment that something terrible should have happened to the perpetrator. What happened to Eli was rape, as Mason fervently told him after the fact to get him to take his pain more seriously, but Eli couldn't bring himself to think that she deserved some kind of capital punishment. He just...wanted her to stay away from him forever.

  
But clearly, revenge was Kaira's version of comfort and reassurance, and Eli appreciated that all the same.

  
"R-right." Eli replied. "It was...really shitty." Kaira's expression became instantly sympathetic, and her tone dropped to the gentle lull that he first heard when he first killed someone. But beyond that, there was a profound sadness there.

  
"I know." Kaira sighed. "It sucks...it sucks worse than anyone can imagine."

  
A sick thought then popped into Eli's head. The police chief Kaira killed at thirteen...

  
"You don't have to answer this if you don't want to but..." Eli started. "Is this why you killed the chief of police?"

  
Kaira glanced away at that moment, and nodded. Tears welled up in Eli's eyes, for himself and for her. He knew it.

  
"I'm so sorry." He said. Kaira was quiet, and then she spoke.

  
"I wasn't the only victim of his," she said. "Not by a long shot. I had a friend then, who fell victim to the same evil man, same as me. We tried to make a plan to take him down. Her plan was to tell everyone she knew...but I just couldn't. It felt too shameful. But bless her heart, she did it anyway. Problem is, nobody believed her.

  
"The last people she told were her parents, and it went about as well as you'd expect." Kaira continued bitterly. "She...she killed herself after that. I was the first one to find her body. After that, I couldn't take it anymore. Either I had to die, or he did, but I couldn't let it continue. So I broke into his house one night and slit his throat. My parents found me trying to scrub the blood off in the shower. The jig was up after that. Pretty soon, everyone knew what I did.

  
"I got a lot of threats after that from the good people of Cranston. They were mortified. Suddenly I was the monster. If I were any older they would've killed me on the spot, but because I was so young, they sentenced me into exile instead - a slow, painful death in the desert. Seems like a fair trade, right? And they got to go on thinking that they were heroes. ...It makes me sick."

  
Kaira stared off into the distance at nothing. She looked beyond exhausted.

  
"My family, the folks I usually live with, are in Cranston right now. They figured it was finally time to tell my parents that I'm alive. I hope they spread the word. I hope everyone has to live with the knowledge that they failed to get rid of me."

  
Eli listened, teary-eyed, to her story, feeling a profound sadness for her. 

  
"I wish you hadn't done that..." He said.

  
"What?" Kaira looked at him with sudden suspicion.

  
"What I mean is, I wish you hadn't HAD to do that. To kill him. The city should have taken care of him as soon as they caught wind that something was wrong. What kind of shitty place did you live where justice needed to be carried out by a thirteen year old girl?"

  
Kaira stared at him, an unreadable look on her face. Eli also wished he could somehow take her pain away. But maybe there was a way.

  
"Hey, uh..." Eli started. "I know how you feel about the city, but have you considered coming to Ridgemont?" He saw the look on Kaira's face and continued. "I've lived there my whole life and it's not nearly as terrible as Cranston sounds. And this place, it sucks. But you could leave behind the killing and the bloodshed and everything, at least after we find out what happened to Mason. You could sneak in and live with us! I think you and Mason would probably get along and - "

  
Eli was cut off when Kaira chuckled quietly.

  
"I won't fit in in the city." She said. "Look at me."

  
"Are you kidding? Everybody's gonna be real nice to you there! You'll intimidate them too much for them not to be!" Eli wondered if this was the wrong thing to say, but he immediately felt reassured when he heard Kaira laugh, loud and full-throated. It was a laugh that seemed to add years to his life expectancy, like finding a unicorn.

  
"Wow, thanks." Kaira laughed. "It's just what I've always hoped for."

  
Eli laughed as well: so she did have a sense of humor! He felt like he had found the holy grail. As the laughter subsided, Eli reiterated:

  
"You should come with me." He said. Kaira smiled into the distance.

  
"Thanks, but I'm pretty sure the family would hunt me down and kick my ass if I did that." She replied. 

  
"Wait, really?" Eli asked, the smile leaving his face.

  
"I dunno," she said. "Probably. I know they'd never forgive me. We're big on loyalty here. Who would I be if I just up and left? "

  
"Probably happier," Eli replied. Kaira shrugged.

  
"Maybe."

  
Kaira was quiet for a long time after that, until finally, she spoke again.

  
"Hey, uh...thanks. For the offer, I mean. I know I've been kind of an asshole to you the past few weeks, so I don't know what I did to deserve it."

  
"You've saved my life at every opportunity," he said. "If it weren't for you, I'd be dead. I would have been dead weeks ago. What's more, you've been teaching me how to survive. And...I'm sorry I wasn't more grateful before. You didn't owe me any of it. Any time you could have just left me to fend for myself, but you haven't."

  
"Well," she said. "Don't give me too much credit. Part of that is because I couldn't risk you giving away the location of the house."

  
"And what's the other part?"

  
"You saved me from one of the warlord's compounds. I don't think you understand how big of a deal that is."

  
"How big?" Eli asked.

  
"Huge." Kaira replied. "She rules the wastelands as far as the eye can see. Me and the family have been fighting her men since I got here. And she has it out for us, big time."

  
"And what happens if you get caught?"

  
"We could be killed outright, if we're lucky. But I've heard rumors of torture and brainwashing. She infects people and they join her armies."

  
"That sounds terrifying," Eli remarked truthfully. He hoped he didn't invoke the warlord's ire as well, but then he remembered the manhunt. Nonetheless, he was glad to be becoming a capable fighter, and he was glad he had a capable fighter on his team as well.

  
"It is." Kaira said. "So thanks. You saved me from a fate worse than death."

  
The two were quiet for a little bit as Eli wondered if his next suggestion would be out of line.

  
"Hey, um...feel free to say no but..." Eli started. Kaira looked up at him expectantly. "Do you do hugs?"

  
The question looked like it genuinely caught Kaira off guard. For once, she looked like she was truly speechless rather than just obstinately quiet.

  
"Uh... I haven't had one of those in years."

  
As if nothing else could make Eli sadder for Kaira than he already was...

  
"That is, honest to god, the saddest thing I ever heard get said. Come here."

  
Kaira looked askance, her cheeks tinged faintly pink, but she looked like she was genuinely considering it. Finally, she shrugged.

  
"What the hell." And Eli wrapped his arms around her. She hesitated a little before robotically putting her arms around him in turn. It was somewhat half-hearted on her part, but Eli's heart leaped for joy anyway.

  
The two of them really were friends after that.


	10. Arc 1 Chapter 10

Eli estimated that about a month had passed since he first became lost in the wastelands. Daily radio transmissions from the balcony would let him and Kaira know that the manhunt was still active, just as expected. Thankfully, the transmissions were consistent:

  
_"Still no sign of the suspects responsible for the Bittern massacre. The hunt continues."_

  
And there was the incident of several weeks ago now:

  
_"A search party went missing today. Others have been sent to the area to investigate."_

  
Evidently, nothing had come of the search parties. In other news, after their conversation of a week ago, Kaira began sleeping again. It made Eli happy beyond belief when he saw her conked out in the master bedroom. She looked so gentle, then. He was thrilled to be seeing that side of her so often now. For the first couple of weeks, Eli wondered if they would ever be friends. He wondered if she was even capable of being a friend. But as long as Eli thought to look, there was no doubt she had a heart of gold. Eli found that he really liked that about her, as well as her dry wit and that loud, raucous laugh of hers, which he now had the regular pleasure of hearing.

  
He knew that leaving this terrible place would be a godsend. He could put aside the killing and the threats of death and the constant, looming feeling of being hunted. He would get to see Ollie again. Hell, depending on where Mason was, he could get to see him too.

  
But the thought remained, would he ever see Kaira again? The notion that he might not made his heart hurt. More than that, he would sometimes have nightmares in which she died and there was nothing he could do to save her, and he'd wake up in a cold sweat believing that a dear friend of his had died. When this happened, he always had to check to make sure Kaira was actually okay, and she'd tell him "It's fine, I'm fine" and sit with him until the nightmares didn't weigh so heavily on him. He certainly felt silly about the whole ordeal, but Kaira would tell him that it was okay and that "they happen to the best of us."

  
"You know what freaks me the fuck out?" She asked one day while the two of them were tracking a deer up a stream. "Hangings. I'm not scared of being hung, but seeing them? Fuck that. That's what I have nightmares about."

  
"I don't blame you," Eli said.

  
"It's interesting how that happens, you know? I see so much death, every fuckin day, and I don't bat an eye. But the second I see someone strung up from the trees or something, I freak out."

  
"Well shit, I'm no psychologist, but I think that's pretty normal, considering what you've been through. What surprises me is that your first kill didn't turn you off from the whole ordeal."

  
"It easily could've," Kaira said. "But out here? It's necessary if you want to stay alive. The thing is, though, it gets easier every time you have to do it. And I've been doing it for ten years. I don't even think about it anymore. That's the blessing."

  
"Sounds more like a curse."

  
"Like I said, you do it enough times, eventually you stop thinking about it. Sometimes that's the best you can do."

  
The two of them spotted the deer at the bottom of the waterfall where the stream began. A practiced hunter by this point, Eli took the shot and killed it. Yep, it was certainly easier than the first time, mentally. He didn't like taking the life of really anything, but he saw the necessity. The forest, to his knowledge, held no other source of protein.

  
They then did what they always did: Eli would make the kill, and Kaira would harvest the meat. It didn't matter how many times they did this, Eli always hated that part. It made him squeamish, but the meat was delicious when cooked.

  
Eli stared up at the waterfall and found there was a way up it. He had an idea.

  
"Hey, what's up the hill there?" He asked.

  
"Not sure," she replied. "I'm not sure when the last time was that I was this far out here."

  
"Do you think we could take a look?"

  
Kaira shrugged in response.

  
"I don't see why not."

  
So the two of them began climbing. The way up was actually fairly easy and they scaled it with ease. At the very top, Eli spotted a bridge over the edge of the waterfall. Eli walked out towards the middle to look out over the waterfall.

  
But Kaira was very much alert to the fact that something was wrong.

  
While Eli had his back turned, someone ran up with the intent to push him off the ledge. Kaira cleared the distance between them before this could happen, and cracked the man's skull with her elbow. Eli's reflexes were fast, but they were useless when he wasn't looking.

  
"Hit the deck!" Kaira cried and started to fire. Eli did as instructed, and from there, he could see at least a dozen more men. Three fell by Kaira's hand before they rushed in. This was gonna be an actual fight.

  
Eli remembered in that moment what Kaira said when she was training him for close-quarters combat. "Every motherfucker you face down is the one that killed your mom." Eli held the memory of his mother tightly and as he dodged his first opponent's blow, he struck back as hard as he could with the butt of his rifle and the man fell.

  
He cast a glance over at Kaira, who was throwing grown men left and right as if they were paper cups. He realized that he'd never seen her in close combat before. She was a frightening sight to behold. Each punch was bone-breaking and life-ending.

  
Suddenly a stinging pain came from his face. He'd been cut by a man with a sneer on his face. He looked as though he just wanted to do damage. But what he didn't expect was for Eli to dodge each pass with the knife, and Eli threw a blow to the man's jaw that knocked him out cold. Of course, he had learned exactly where to strike. All he knew now was that he had to finish the man off before he could get back up, so he fired point-blank at the man's head. A red mist flew up and the man was still.

  
Eli had no time to reel from the bloodshed, and soon he was firing onto the crowd surrounding Kaira, making sure she wouldn't be overwhelmed. She took a couple hits from the men, but seemed to be holding her own. She was utterly ferocious, in fact. Soon, her karambit came out, glinting in the sunlight. She slashed to and fro, dropping men into pools of their own blood. Several of the men lept back, but even then, they didn't stand a chance. Kaira was far faster than all of them put together.

I wonder why only one of them had a weapon? Eli thought as the men fell one by one. Soon they were gone, but then Eli caught a glimpse of something - a flash from up the hill. He wondered what it was. But then he looked back at Kaira, who was facing the same direction. She looked back at him with wide-eyed panic and rushed over to him. That was when Eli knew something was wrong.

  
Eli knew that she was about to push him over, but she was too fast for him to react. She shoved him with her full weight and he collapsed in a heap against the bridge. He realized too late that the glint was a sniper scope. Then came the sound of wind rushing and a sickening crunch as a bullet met the space under Kaira's collarbone.  
Eli was stunned, too stunned to grab her hand as she plummeted over the waterfall.

  
"NO!" He cried, reaching out but just missing. He could only watch helplessly as her body fell down far into the waters below.

  
\-----------

  
Kaira stared up at the sky, adrenaline numbing any pain she might have felt on the way down. She was falling, there was no doubt about that, and she had no idea what awaited her down below. Would she meet her end on sharp rocks below the surface? Would she survive hitting the surface of the water? She had no idea.

  
Cold water met scarlet flecks of blood as she fell. A profound cold worked its way up her spine. In that moment, she wondered about Eli. And she felt sad that his nightmares might soon come true. She knew what it was like to feel helpless, and she wouldn't dare wish that upon him.

  
As shock made her delirious, she imagined for a moment like she could fly. It brought her back to her time wandering the desert at the tender age of thirteen, parasailing with a tarp on dust storms.

  
There was a splash, a thud as her head met the bottom of the pool, and darkness consumed her.

  
\----------

  
Without missing a beat, Eli grabbed his rifle and took aim at the sniper, his hands shaking with shock and fury. This was how Kaira must have felt all those years ago, seeing her best friend die, knowing that the perpetrator was still out there.

  
But not for long.

  
Before the sniper could fire another shot, the bullet struck him and his life snuffed out. At any other moment, Eli would have been horrified to find the sniper's death unsatisfying, certainly unbefitting of the magnitude of his crime. This was not that moment, though. Nonetheless, Eli had to find Kaira. If nothing else, he needed to know what had happened to her. And above all else, he prayed that she was okay.

  
Content to find no one left living, Eli made his way down the slope of the waterfall and followed the stream. He had to find her. He had to.

  
He didn't have to follow the stream for very long, though. On the riverbank, caught by a fallen log is where he found Kaira. Her blood stained the water red around her.

  
"Kaira!" Eli raced over to her and turned her over on her back. There he could see the damage well enough that it made his stomach turn. No doubt, some important arteries had been severed. He realized with dawning horror just how much blood she had lost, and was continuing to lose.

  
Taking off his shirt, he tied it around her shoulder, creating a makeshift tourniquet. Then he realized that he didn't even know if she was still alive or not. He scarcely dared to believe that she might be anything but alive.

  
So he pressed his ear to her heart and waited.

  
Time seemed to slow, seconds felt like hours. Until finally, he realized that her pulse was faint, but there. She was alive.

  
Eli breathed a sigh of relief, but his fears wouldn't abate. He had no idea how she'd pull through, especially when she was losing this much blood. He had to do something. But what could he do? Panic began to creep in. He couldn't let her die!

  
Eli picked her up and her bone density made it a real challenge. Nonetheless he began his frantic search for anything or anyone who could help. But he also realized that everyone he found would likely just kill them instead. He was stuck and Kaira was dying. But he had to take a chance or she was dead anyway.

  
"HELP!" He cried. "ANYBODY? MY FRIEND IS HURT."

  
No response. Eli called out again and again, Kaira's body cooling down in his arms. At last, the tears began to flow as the hopelessness of the situation really sank in. He sat down, clutching Kaira tightly, hoping against hope that he could warm her up again.

  
He was taken completely by surprise when he found a pair of forest green eyes staring at him from the underbrush.

  
"H-hello?" He still had his gun slung to his back, in case this person turned out to be a threat like all the others. A woman slowly climbed out from her hiding place, a look of caution and curiosity present in her gaze. She was chubby in stature and dark-skinned with thick, curly hair that draped down in coils to the middle of her back. She was beautiful.

  
Eli stared at the woman for a bit, and the woman stared back. She then looked down at Kaira, studying her body.

  
"I can help," came her voice, smooth and feminine. Eli wasn't sure if his trust was misplaced, but what other option did he have?


	11. Arc 1 Chapter 11

The woman led Eli back to the waterfall and up. Eli struggled to carry Kaira up the slope. Admittedly, he didn't want to be going back to where he just was, but did he really have a choice if he wanted to save Kaira's life?

  
Partway up the waterfall, Eli was saw that the woman vanished.

  
"In here," came her voice. Eli followed it, and was amazed to find that there was a cave behind the waterfall, hidden from sight. So he followed the woman inside and what he saw stupefied him.

  
The cavern was lit up with bioluminescent life: bright electric blue. Eli had never seen something so beautiful in his entire life. It was stunning. But there was no time to gaze upon the majesty of the cavern now: he had a life to save.

  
Somewhere deep in back of the cavern was a tiny, decrepit shack. This, Eli assumed, was where the woman was leading him. Perhaps it was where she lived. When Eli got to the shack, the woman gave him a very serious look.

  
"First of all," she started. "You can't tell anyone about this place. Understood?"

  
Eli nodded. He didn't really care at that moment, seeing as Kaira was in mortal peril. He was willing to say anything to get this woman's help. Anything that would help save her.  
The woman then prompted Eli to hand Kaira over to her. Eli did so, and the woman studied her closely.

  
"You did good with the tourniquet," the woman said. "It hasn't stopped the bleeding much, but it could be the reason she still has a pulse."

  
"What can you do for her?" Eli asked shakily.

  
"The damage is bad, but I can use biogel to stop the bleeding and fix the severed arteries."

  
"Biogel?"

  
"Family recipe," was all the woman said. "Go ahead and sit down anywhere. This'll be a while."

  
\------------

  
Eli sat and waited for the woman to get done and hoped he hadn't made a mistake by trusting her. He knew it was risky to trust strangers out in the wastelands, but the woman seemed relatively nice and eager to help. But there was also something cautious about her, not entirely distrustful like what Eli first experienced with Kaira, but he got the feeling that he really wasn't supposed to be there. He wondered anxiously if Kaira was going to be alright.

  
The woman stepped out of the cabin, finally. Eli stood up to meet her.

  
"How is she?" he asked.

  
"Not awake yet, but I expected that. She's stabilizing, but you'll both have to stay here tonight."

  
"Is she...is she gonna be okay?" Eli asked, hopefully.

  
"We'll know when she wakes up. She lost a lot of blood, but not as much as she could have," the woman said. "I'm hopeful that she'll come through."

  
Eli breathed a shaky sigh of relief.

  
"I can't thank you enough. She...means a lot to me."

  
"Are you together?" The woman asked.

  
"Well, no." Eli replied. "We're friends, but the fact remains that I care about her a lot."

  
"I completely understand. If you don't mind my asking, how did you two meet?"

  
Eli chuckled darkly.

  
"Heh, not under good circumstances, that's for sure. We met at a bar briefly. I was blackout drunk and she almost went aggro on me. We met officially when I wound up lost out here from Ridgemont, and I bumbled my way into some sort of compound."

  
"A compound?" the woman asked, her eyes suddenly wide. " _Her_ compound?"

  
"One of them, I guess, if you're talking about the warlord who supposedly runs everything. I still don't know that much about her, except that she means real bad news."

  
The woman stared past him for a moment, as if unspeakable horrors were dancing in her eyes.

  
"More than you realize. How did you get out?" The woman asked.

  
"I found Kaira. She was tied up there, so I let her out. She almost killed me, until she saw who I was. We escaped together, and she blew up the compound." - The woman's eyes took on a shocked yet hopeful gleam at this - "We've been in hiding since, but she's working on helping me get home. Would have been any day now, until...this happened."

  
"And who's responsible for her being shot?"

  
"Well," Eli started, feeling a tinge of pain at what he was really thinking. "Technically, it must've been one of the search parties, I think, though I don't know why only some of them had weapons. But there was one hiding uphill with a sniper...that's what got her."

  
"Do you know how Maria keeps her armies strong?"

  
Eli shook his head. _So Maria is the warlord's name..._

  
"She routinely selects troops that she deems expendable. She sends them out weaponless, and they have the opportunity to either prove their worth to her, or die trying. But sometimes, she sends backup in the form of snipers. You must have run into such a party...but still, I have a feeling there's something you're not telling me."

  
Eli looked down at his feet.

  
"She got shot protecting me," he said. "If I had recognized that light as the glint of a sniper scope, she wouldn't have to be here now. She's the reason I'm still alive."

  
"Consider yourself lucky," the woman replied gently. "It's hard to come across good allies out here. I haven't had that much luck in years."

  
"How long have you been out here?" He asked. "Oh, and what's your name?"

  
"My name is Farishta. And I've lived out here my whole life. What about you?"

  
"I'm Eli. I've only been out here for about a month. Heh."

  
"It's good to meet you." Farishta smiled.


	12. Arc 1 Chapter 12

Kaira opened her eyes to see bright, electric blue lights dangling above her. She wondered for a moment if this was really what hell looked like, because there was no way on god's green earth that it could have been heaven. So either it was hell or she was alive.

  
Weakly, she tried to sit up and was frightened to feel hands on her shoulders, pulling her back down.

  
"What the fuck...?" She wheezed, but as Kaira was forced to lay back down, she saw a pair of concerned green eyes and one of the prettiest faces she'd ever seen staring down at her in concern.

  
"Stay down, you lost a lot of blood." Farishta told her gently. "How do you feel?"

  
Admittedly, Kaira was having a hard time not staring at her. But all she said was this:

  
"Like hammered shit." She replied. Finally, she blinked and turned away from the woman's face to look at her bloody, bandaged shoulder. "Right...I got-"

  
"You got shot. You'll have to stay here for a bit until you recover."

  
"Where is here?"

  
"Behind the waterfall. Don't tell anyone I'm here."

  
"Where's Eli?"

  
"Outside the cabin. He's told me a lot about you, you know. I appreciate what you did, blowing up one of Maria's compounds. She's a nasty piece of work, isn't she?"  
"Well yeah," Kaira replied, some of the strength returning to her voice. "My family has been on her shit-list for years."

  
Farishta chuckled, clear as a bell.

  
"That's how I know I can trust you." She said.

  
Kaira felt uncertain, though. Trust was hard won, in her experience, and this woman's trust was being so freely given? Kaira really wasn't sure she was deserving of it: she had really no idea who this woman was. But apparently she was a doctor of sorts, and she had patched up her wounded shoulder, so that was a start. Kaira made a mental note to make sure no one else knew where the woman lived. After all, she wasn't sure if the rest of the family would see her as a threat. She resolved not to tell them unless something went awry here.

  
"My name's Farishta," the woman said. "And I know you're Kaira."

  
Kaira studied Farishta closely and found some...peculiarities. For example, her eyes ever so fainly glowed and her canines, which Kaira could see glinting in the bioluminescent light, appeared to be longer and sharper than Kaira was used to seeing. She knew that mutations were common, depending on how close folks were born near the pockets of radiation scattered throughout this desolate world: Kaira was a mutant herself. But throughout her years of living in this forest, she had heard stories of shapeshifters.  
But the shapeshifters had been wiped out, she thought, and so there was no way Farishta could be one. But still, Kaira found the resemblance curious.

  
Kaira realized that Farishta was not shrinking from her gaze whatsoever. In fact, she seemed to be studying Kaira with a similar intensity, her eyes scanning Kaira closely.

  
"...What?" Kaira thought to ask, blunt as ever.

  
"It's nothing." Farishta replied. "You're just pretty, is all."

  
Now THAT caught Kaira off guard. She'd seen herself in the mirror plenty of times and never really thought of herself with any particular adjective, other than scarred or muscular. Were some people really into that? It seemed that Farishta certainly was, with the way she seemed to be looking Kaira over.

  
"Uh...thanks...?" Kaira said, having absolutely no internal protocol for a situation like this. "You, uh, you too."

  
At that moment, and thank god, as Kaira needed a distraction from the what-do-I-say feeling, Eli walked in. He was beaming instantly with relief.

  
"I thought I heard your voice!" He rushed in and threw his arms around Kaira. As with the last time he hugged her, it felt weird but nice. Too nice, in fact. The word craving quickly came to Kaira's mind before she was able to suppress it. Nonetheless, she returned the hug after a half second. She was genuinely happy to see him, alive and well.

  
"Are you feeling okay?" Eli asked, clutching her tightly.

  
"I feel like shit," Kaira replied honestly. "But I'm here."

  
\------------

  
Eli and Kaira stayed in the cave with Farishta that night. Farishta offered up her bed to the two of them with the pretense that she would also be sleeping in it. It was quite a large bed, so they could all sleep comfortably in their own personal bubbles. Kaira had reservations about sharing a bed, for reasons. At home she had her own space, but here? Not a chance. Nonetheless, and still weak from blood loss, she needed to sleep and couldn't be bothered to care that much about where, and with whom, she was sleeping.

  
So she curled up in bed in between Farishta and Eli, and it wasn't long before she was out.

  
Kaira had no idea how long she'd been asleep when she woke up again. All she knew was that Eli's arm was draped around her waist.

  
Vaguely annoyed by the intrusion into her personal space, she looked over at him. He was sound asleep, but his face twitched. His eyebrows were furrowed and it looked like his jaw was clenched, his breathing was shaky. Kaira recognized that look - he was having some sort of nightmare - and felt a little more sympathetic.

  
Then, Eli sniffled and clutched tightly onto Kaira with both arms. Now this, she didn't even remotely know how to handle. But somehow she understood that Eli was reaching out for some sort of comfort, even subconsciously. It reminded her of when she saw him having nightmares back at the treehouse. Except he had no one then to hold on to. Nonetheless, Kaira would be there, doing her best to console him, even if it wasn't always good enough. She figured in the end that by tolerating being used as a glorified teddy bear, she was doing him an important service. And she found that she was content to do that for him now, after all they'd been through. Besides, and Kaira was hesitant to admit it, but it actually felt really nice.

  
_Is that weird?_ She thought, and found she couldn't answer her own question. So she didn't try. With one last look at Eli, she turned her head and fell back asleep.


	13. Arc 1 Chapter 13

Eli woke up feeling a little too content that morning for the rough night he had in terms of dreams. He was clutching something warm and firm...something that felt like...

  
_Oh Jesus it's Kaira!_ He thought with a start, unspooling himself from her sleeping form. At least, he hoped she was sleeping. Certainly she'd give him hell if she woke to find him holding her like this, right?

  
But alas, as he removed his arms from her body, she turned to look at him fully. She was very much awake.

  
"S-sorry!" He whispered loudly. "I really didn't mean to - "

  
"It's whatever." Kaira replied, her face placid as ever. "You were having nightmares. I get it."

  
"I know, but like, geez. That was a whole invasion of your personal space!"

  
"Don't worry about it." Kaira reiterated, shrugging off his concerns with a wave of her hand. "I'll live."

  
Eli looked over to see that Farishta was already out of bed. She entered the room in that moment, carrying a bowl of some sort of soup.

  
"I thought I heard voices." She said. "Come eat."

  
Eli got out of bed, and watched as Kaira worked to do the same. And it was definitely work, from the looks of it. But still, she looked a little stronger than yesterday, so that was a good sign. Eli didn't know how much of it was an act, though.

  
The three ate in relative quiet, but Eli noticed that Farishta's gaze seemed to be trained on Kaira. It was a look he recognized, as it was a look he gave to many a woman that he happened to be smitten with in his life. The look made him want to smile, at least at first.

  
But then, he found that the more he thought about it, another familiar feeling began to surface. But Eli refused to believe that it could have been even a _hint_ of jealousy. Surely, his feelings for Kaira were that of respectful admiration and a feeling of success at eventually bringing her out of her cold, hard shell and _nothing else_.

  
Kaira, on the other hand, seemed totally oblivious to the attention that Farishta was paying her. Eli wondered how Kaira would feel about all this if she were paying attention.

  
Eventually, with food eaten and strength returning, it was time for Kaira and Eli to go back to the treehouse. Eli wasn't sure if Kaira could make the trip, but she was insistent that she could. And honestly, Eli expected nothing less.

  
"Take care, you two." Farishta told them with a smile. "And as long as you make sure you're not followed, you're always welcome back." She threw a wink at Kaira and as Eli saw, Kaira seemed to get the message this time. She gave a little double-take and blinked a couple times in quick succession.

  
"Right..." Kaira said. "Duly noted."

  
And with that, Farishta smiled and sent them off. When they were out of earshot, Kaira looked at Eli with a sense of alarm.

  
" _What_ the hell was _that_?" She asked.

  
"What?" Eli asked in return.

  
"Her! Farishta! Why was she acting like that?"

  
"Oh." Eli laughed. "She was definitely flirting with you."

  
"But _why_?"

  
"Dude, it's because she likes you, obviously!"

  
"That still doesn't answer my question!"

  
"Wanna go back and take it up with her?" At this, Kaira looked away and blushed, clearing her throat.

  
"Not now. Maybe eventually, but not now."

  
\------------

  
Kaira and Eli were close to the treehouse now, but a rustling in the underbrush instantly put them on edge. Kaira took Eli's gun and ushered him behind her as she took aim towards the noise. Eli couldn't help but feel a little shocked. Didn't Kaira already get shot in the past 24 hours on his behalf? Wouldn't that put her off doing it now? In any case, Kaira was in no shape for a fight, but it didn't look like that would stop her.

  
In that moment, the muzzle of a rifle appeared from out of the bushes, held by a man that looked to be about Eli's age.

  
Eli expected another firefight, but then the man spoke.

  
"Kaira?" The man asked. "You look like shit."

  
Eli knew Kaira had a bit of a reputation, which is why he wasn't surprised to see that this stranger knew her. But why wasn't a fight breaking out?

  
"Chandler? Where the fuck did you come from?!" Kaira's tone was...shockingly jovial. But then Eli recognized the name like a flash of a memory.

  
This was one of Kaira's family!

  
Just then, another man came through the bushes, looking to be in his late twenties.

  
"Who's the stranger?" He asked warily. Eli didn't like the edge in the man's tone.

  
"That's a real long story, and I've been through enough shit to let you haul off and murder him now, so don't try," Kaira replied.

  
So that was two, but where was the third?

  
"Kaira! How the hell are you, girl?" The last voice was definitely a more elderly one. Not extremely old by any means, but older than Eli expected all the same. And when the man appeared, he looked to be in his late fifties and the burn scars on his face betrayed the playful glint in his eye. But once he saw Eli, his gaze took on a suspicious gleam.

  
"So you got yourself a boyfriend, didja?" He asked Kaira, still glaring knives and daggers at Eli. Eli flinched under his gaze.

  
"It's not like that, Joe." Kaira replied. Normally, Eli would have expected a snappy reply from Kaira, but instead she seemed to be handling her uncle with a level of deference.

  
"Then why the bloody hell is he hanging around?"

  
"Well..." Kaira started, trailing off at first as if she didn't want to say what she was going to. "He saved me from one 'a the warlord's compounds. Bittern," she added.

  
"You let yourself be caught by those freakbags?"

  
Kaira then dared to look her uncle in the eye.

  
"Right, like I just wandered in and asked to get caught."

  
"You got careless, girlie. And from the looks of it, you've just been shot." Joe motioned to the obvious bandaging on her collarbone. "Color me disappointed." Kaira looked away once more as her uncle spoke, no doubt feeling some level of shame. Eli's heart went out to her. Kaira always spoke fondly of her family, but Eli wasn't sure he liked them much so far. After all, she'd been shot and they weren't even concerned!

  
"Anywho, you owe the city-boy a debt then, huh?" Joe asked her. "What'd he want from ya in return? Money? Guns? Sex, maybe?"

  
Kaira gave Joe a mortified look, and Eli decided to step in.

  
"H-hey! Woah! I didn't ask for anything! She offered to take me home, that's it!"

  
"Oh yeah?" Joe stepped so close to Eli that he could smell the whiskey on his breath. "Then why aren't you home, son?"

  
"There was a manhunt," Eli replied quickly. "Kaira blew up the compound with everyone inside, including one of the warlord's generals!"

  
"A general?!" Joe exclaimed. Chandler stared on in amazement, but Kaira's other cousin looked scandalized. Before he could speak, Joe continued talking.

  
"Well bust my britches! Good on ya, girlie!" Joe complimented. "But you know this means war, right?"

  
"We're aware, Joe. It's why I've been teaching Eli here how to fight and shoot a gun." Kaira said.

  
"Good! Make this pretty-boy useful!" Joe exclaimed. Kaira's unnamed cousin chose this moment to step in.

  
"Dad, this isn't a good thing." He said. "There's been a stranger in our home and we're on the warlord's shit list."

  
"Relax, Riley." Joe replied, somewhat exasperated. "We were already on that bitch's shit list. And now we have ourselves another fighter on the team!"

  
"More like another soft mouth to feed..." Riley muttered, looking Eli over.

  
"To be fair," Kaira started. "Eli and I are on her shit list. Not so much you all."

  
"All the more reason to get. Him. Out of here. I don't care how well you've trained him, he'll be a liability." Riley's words offended Eli, sure, but they also seemed to strike a nerve with Kaira.

  
"What, so should you all kick me out too while you're at it?" Kaira asked defensively.

  
Riley said nothing, but Eli could see a hint of consideration on his face. Evidently, Kaira saw it too, and scowled challengingly.

  
"If it matters," Eli started, "I don't have any intention of sticking around longer than I need to. In fact, Kaira was going to escort me home any day now."

  
"Haha, escort." Chandler piped up, after which Kaira punched him in the arm crankily.

"Good." Riley replied to Eli. "Make it soon," he added to Kaira.

  
"Now hold on there, Riley." Joe began. "This boy here hasn't proven himself to us yet, but if he does, he could prove himself an ally. We're only four folks together, and the warlord's got armies. We're gonna need more numbers if we're gonna beat the bitch!"

  
"And we're gonna need less if we're gonna survive her. We have to lay low, Dad. Taking in Kaira was one thing: she's family. But we don't know this kid," Riley replied.

  
"And I'm not sticking around," Eli said. Didn't he say this already? What were they even arguing about? "I'm going home soon, remember?"

  
There was a silence for a bit as the family studied him.

  
"...Suit yourself, boy." Joe finally said, and Riley heaved an exaggerated sigh of relief.

  
"Well, Kaira? You got us into this mess. When are you going to take him home?" Riley asked. Eli truly wondered what the answer was. After all, Kaira had lost a lot of blood just a day ago, and Eli was concerned about her.

  
"Tomorrow," she said, her voice flat. "We can start tomorrow."

  
"Are you sure?" Eli mouthed to her. He wanted to go home, especially after all this time, but he wasn't sure if Kaira was really up for the trip. In spite of her flat affect, the way she looked at him indicated that even she wasn't sure. She shrugged in response.

  
"Then it's settled," Joe said. "You take this boy to wherever he wants to go and come back. There's work to do, girlie."

  
"Right." Kaira replied. She followed her family up the ladder to the treehouse, with Eli in tow.


	14. Arc 1 Chapter 14

Kaira wasted little time in asking the family about her parents. Surely, they knew that Kaira was alive now, since her family had visited Cranston.

  
"The whole damn trip was fer nothin'. Couldn't get in," Joe had said. "They put a goddamn wall up. Didn't look all that sound, but we couldn't get around it all the same."

  
Kaira seemed disappointed. She'd been anxious to hear about her folks back home, but it seemed as though she wouldn't get the chance. Eli's heart went out to her.

  
Needless to say, the night was a little chilly, so to speak. Joe and Chandler seemed fairly exuberant, asking Eli about his life in the city, but they did so with a certain level of condescension. They had clearly been through worse, it seemed. As a result, Eli brought out the big guns.

  
"So there was this girl I really liked, right?" Eli started. "Well, she was dating this guy and I had no idea: she didn't bother to tell me. Turns out, this guy was, like, a bodybuilder with anger issues. So eventually he found out about me, and he was PISSED. And there's this bridge in the center of Ridgemont. So he saw me walking there one day, introduced himself as the guy who was going to kill me, and floored his car towards me."

  
"What'd you do?" Chandler asked, clearly expecting some dumb shit.

  
"I jumped."

  
"Off the bridge?" Joe asked.

  
"Yup! I panicked and just...went for it! Ended up breaking my leg. I totally could've died if I landed any more wrong. I haven't seen that guy since then, so he probably thinks I'm dead. Easily one of the craziest things to ever happen to me."

  
"Riiiiight." Chandler replied. "And what's happened since you wound up out here?" He asked condescendingly.

  
"Oh...a firefight or two. I've killed people by now, you know."

  
"Child's play." Chandler responded. "Any schmuck can shoot somebody. Have you lit a man on fire yet?"

  
"No," Eli admitted. "But I let Kaira out of that compound, so in a way, I facilitated the burning of _a lot_ of people." Caught up in his want to impress Kaira's family, he only realized how horrified he was as soon as he spoke the words out loud. Regardless, no one seemed to be impressed.

  
"Doesn't count," Chandler said. "But hey, cheer up! If you were to spend enough time out here, you'd get there!"

  
"Or die trying! Ha!" Joe chimed in.

  
"Are you trying to traumatize him? Come on, guys." Kaira said.

  
"Hey, Kaira, tell him the story of your first kill out here!" Chandler piped up. Eli stared curiously at her.

  
"What, you mean the first time I shot somebody? It was hardly all that eventful."

  
"No, no. I mean your first face-to-face kill."

  
Recollection flashed in Kaira's eyes, but she hesitated, casting a glance at Eli. Finally, she spoke.

  
"So I was about fourteen. There was a firefight, and we won, but there was one of the warlord's men left alive, but wounded." She added the next part quietly, but loud enough for Riley to hear. "Riley shot that one." She smirked knowingly at Riley, who scowled in response.

  
"We knew we had to finish him off, and Joe asked me to do it." Kaira continued. "I figured it was easier to shoot him - I'd shot plenty of people by that point, that was easy. But Joe told me no. He wanted me to use my knife." Kaira motioned to the karambit she kept at her waist. "He wanted me to recreate my first kill. Wanted to see it for himself."

  
_The first one is never easy._ Eli didn't like where this was going. Not one bit.

  
"And man, did she deliver!" Chandler chimed in. "He was on the ground, so she straddled his chest, and then she took forever to deliver the blow. Like she was building suspense or something. Finally she gave this little war-cry and slashed his throat. And then to top it off afterward, she was shaking like a leaf! Can you believe it?"

  
Eli could only stare, horrified. He was real sensitive as a teenager, and still was now, to an extent. But to ask a traumatized fourteen year old to kill someone? And in the same way she killed the pedophile who ruined her life, an act which no doubt traumatized her further? What kind of monsters was she living with? He cast a glance at Kaira, who actually looked _embarrassed_.

  
"It was sloppy," she remarked. "So what?"

  
S _o what?! You shouldn't have been put in that position again!_ Eli thought so loudly that he prayed Kaira would hear him.

  
"Y'ain't like that now though! Yer a regular killer!" Joe exclaimed, patting Kaira roughly on the back. She raised her chin in a prideful expression, though Eli didn't think there was necessarily anything to be proud of.

  
"I think you're going soft," Riley told her. "Evidenced by the fact that he's here," he finished, pointing at Eli. Evidently, Riley was still not a fan of Eli's presence, and it made Eli want to be back home all the more.

  
"Cut her some slack, Riley!" Chandler exclaimed. "What can you expect from a city girl?"

  
"You were born in Cranston, too, you moron." Kaira reminded him.

  
"Yeah, but we left first," Chandler said.

  
They bickered like this for a while longer, and Eli got the impression that the three of them were in a constant competition to see who the coldest-blooded killer was. Eli wondered what all their stories were, though he didn't ask. But what Eli learned was that Joe, Riley, and Chandler all left Cranston at the same time, before Kaira did and when Riley and Chandler were still quite young. Kaira was clearly the black sheep of the group, but she had a profound amount of respect for Joe, no doubt instilled in her from a young age. And Joe had taken all three kids under his wing and trained them to be killers. It was a tough competition between Joe, Riley, and Chandler, but because of this, Eli thought he liked Joe least of all.


	15. Arc 1 Chapter 15

Eli and Kaira set out early the next morning, knowing that it would take a few days to reach their destination. Eli was happy to be leaving, he didn't know how long he could stomach Kaira's atrocious family.

  
"So, I hope you don't take offense," Eli started. "But what the fuck was that last night?"

  
"What was what?" Kaira asked.

  
"Just...all of that!" Eli exclaimed. "Lemme pick a starting point: why the hell would Joe put you through that thing when you were fourteen? Why would he make you guys kill people?"

  
"It's a survival thing," Kaira replied matter-of-factly.

  
"To make kids fight your battles for you?"

  
"Okay," Kaira started. "I know what you're thinking. And it's not...ideal. I'll admit that. But the people we're killing are terrible people. They're more than willing to kill and enslave and do god knows what else to innocent people. I won't pretend that doing something about it isn't a sacrifice, but it's a sacrifice that needs to be made. The more of those fucks running around, the lesser our odds of survival are."

  
"Okay, but couldn't you just...lay low instead? Are you sure you guys aren't drawing attention to yourselves as it is?"

  
"That's a short term solution, but we're in this for the long haul. What's better: to let shit go on as it is to better our odds of survival in the short term, or to eradicate the threat entirely?"

  
"Alright, that's fair, I think," Eli replied. "But couldn't Joe have waited until you were all adults?"

  
"Hard to say," Kaira stated simply.

  
"Don't you see anything wrong with that?" Eli asked. "I'm just saying, as someone who's killed people too, that shit is traumatic! I don't like doing it, and I'm an adult! But doing it as a kid? That's unthinkable!"

  
"What's your point, Eli?" Kaira asked tersely, though she seemed to be thinking.

  
"The point is...I'm not sure if your family has your best interests at heart. I think they take a lot of pride in your ability to kill people as ruthlessly as possible, but I just don't think that's good for you. It can't be."

  
"It's not about me," Kaira replied. "It's not even about the family, really. It's about beating the warlord so that we don't have to live in fear any longer. I'll do anything in my power to make that happen, no matter what it costs me. That's what I've been trained for."

  
"I get that, Kaira, but I still worry about you." Eli told her. "You're not some mindless vehicle of justice and you shouldn't have to be. You're a person. Same as me."

  
Kaira stared at him thoughtfully. Apparently, that had never even crossed her mind.

  
"...I'm not quite sure I believe you, if I'm being honest." Kaira said simply.

  
"See? Right there! Is that really what your family has encouraged for all these years?"

  
"Doesn't matter," Kaira said. "They gave me a purpose. And honestly, I don't think they're nearly as bad as you think they are."

  
_Good god, she's been brainwashed..._ Eli thought frustratedly. But he wouldn't quit. She was his friend, and he still had one last opportunity to help her.

  
"Regardless," he said. "could you at least _consider_ coming to live in Ridgemont?"

  
"You know I can't," Kaira said. "Number one, not only will I fit in about as well as a wolf in a sheep herd, I don't have a purpose over there. Number two, I can't just turn my back on everything I've worked ten years for. And number three, the family would never forgive me."

  
Eli was quiet for a bit. That was undoubtedly a hard no.

  
"Well, if that's your answer, then I can't stop you." Eli started. "But if you ever need anything from me, Ridgemont is just North of the bar we're heading to. It's about a thirty minute drive, so that'll be a long walk. Once you see the wall, head around the West side until you see an opening. Me and Mason live right through there."

  
Kaira paused as she took in Eli's words.

  
"...Thanks." She finally said. "I'm still not sure I deserve the treatment, but I appreciate it anyway."

  
"No problem. The police never really visit our neck of the woods, so it should be safe for you to sneak in anytime you want."

  
"Noted." Kaira replied.

  
\----------

The next few days were filled with both laughter and a touch of melancholy at Eli's soon departure. Eli was thrilled to be going home, but he knew he would miss Kaira, and he strongly suspected that she would miss him too. He wished with all his heart that she could come with him, and leave behind the killing and the bloodshed like he was going to, but he also knew that she would never go for it. In Kaira's mind, she belonged to the wasteland and had an obligation to its liberation. This, she felt, was her sole purpose for being. And barring that, who even was she?

  
Eli felt very strongly that a person didn't need to have a purpose to be worthwhile, but how could he convince Kaira that when she so clearly believed the contrary in relation to herself? That's what frustrated Eli the most.

  
Finally, they arrived at the bar. It was empty at this time of day. Eli knew the way home from here.

  
"I guess this is it, huh?" He asked.

  
"'Fraid so," Kaira replied.

  
The two were quiet for a while, looking for the right words.

  
"I just wanted to say thanks," Eli said. "Thanks for saving me, teaching me how to survive, and just...being there. It really means a lot."

  
Kaira obviously struggled a little to accept his thanks, but she tried anyway.

  
"It was no problem. You made it pretty easy." She said, a faint smile on her face. Eli knew he was gonna miss seeing her smile.

  
Figuring he didn't need to ask this time, he pulled her in for a hug, and after her usual moment of hesitation, she genuinely returned it.

  
"Gonna miss you, pretty-boy." Kaira said.

  
"You think I'm pretty?" Eli asked, grinning.

  
"I have eyes, dumb-dumb." She said with a chuckle. "And I can tell you that you're not hideous."

  
"Hey thanks, that's all I've ever asked for!" Eli laughed. As he drew back, he looked at her very seriously. "Please take care of yourself, alright?"

  
"I can't promise much," she said. "But I'll do my best. Stay safe out there," Kaira added quietly.

  
"Hey, um...if I can't find my brother, you'll keep an eye out for him, won't you?" Eli asked. Kaira frowned a little, but when she spoke, Eli was at least a little reassured.

  
"Of course I will."

  
And with one last look she turned to walk away. Eli smiled at her, and without thinking about the implications, said this:

  
"Love you!"

  
Kaira stopped dead in her tracks, as if she had just run into a glass door, and turned to look at him in a mixture of shock and confusion. Eli thought nothing of it, he told all his friends he loved them, but the look on Kaira's face implied that he'd said something pretty monumental.

  
"Er, platonically!" He added. Kaira merely blinked at him.

  
"...Uh. Yeah. You too."

  
Eli's heart swelled.

  
"Bye, Kaira." He said.

  
And with that, the two turned and went their separate ways.


	16. Arc 1 Chapter 16

Eli retraced his steps back home from the bar. The thought of going home was exhilarating, but then he remembered with a heaviness in his heart that his mom wouldn't be there. He wondered if anyone had found her body yet, but if anyone had to, it would've been Ollie. Plus, Eli wasn't even sure if Mason would be there. That's when he remembered, he had to check the spot where the sedan ran out of gas. He didn't know how far he'd have to walk to get there, but he didn't care. He had to come away with some idea of what had happened to his brother.

  
After several hours of walking, Eli reached the familiar gap in the wall. His heart pounding, he looked inside. Everything was as it was left, and there were no police in sight.

 _Figures_ , he thought.

  
Eli went through the wall and to his house. The thought of what he saw there only a month ago still weighed heavily on him. He wasn't sure if he could even go inside. But he did.

  
The bodies had been long cleared away, and the place was in relatively great shape...mostly. The house, for how long it had been vacant, had a lived in appearance. This made Eli's heart jump.

  
"Eli?" A familiar voice called out. Of course, it had to be...

  
"Ollie?!"

  
Eli couldn't believe it, not even when Ollie practically tackled him to the ground. He missed his friend so much, it was hard to speak, especially after everything he'd been through. So instead, Eli broke down. Ollie had questions, sure, but he seemed to think better of asking them until Eli was done.

  
Finally, his breakdown was over, and Ollie had the chance to speak.

  
"Where have you been?" Ollie asked frantically. "I was scared shitless!"

  
"The wasteland," Eli sniffed. "It fucking _sucked_ , man!"

  
"Where's Mason?"

  
"...I hoped he was here..." Eli trailed off.

  
"You don't know where he is?" Ollie asked, worry evident in his face. Eli shook his head.

  
"That was my next move," Eli said. "We were running from wastelanders, and our sedan ran out of gas. Mason told me to run...said that he would hold them off."

  
" _Did_ you?"

  
"What else could I do? I was unarmed! But I didn't get to see what happened to him. I-I fell into a ravine and couldn't find my way back."

  
"Oh, dude..."

  
"We can go to where the sedan is, though. Maybe we can figure out what happened to him!"

  
"The what are we waiting for?" Ollie exclaimed. "We have to find him!"

  
Without waiting, Ollie rushed out the door, and the two were off through the gap in the wall.

  
"When I heard about Carmen, I was crushed." Ollie admitted, referring to Eli's mother. "And when I went to see how you two were doing, you were gone. I thought you'd be back, but...well, here you are now. It's so good to see you, man."

  
"I missed the hell out of you, too." Eli said.

  
"But tell me, why were you gone for so long? I figured you'd be back weeks ago!"

  
"I wanted to be," Eli admitted. "But that's a long story."

  
"Well, you've got all day to tell it, then."

  
And so as Ollie and Eli walked, Eli talked about the day he officially met Kaira, and how she saved him. He talked about the explosion and the manhunt. He mentioned how cold and aggressive Kaira was at first, but how she really came out of her shell when they were able to bond over a shared awful experience. He talked about his time training in the wastelands and how he'd killed people out there, and he talked about Kaira's family of cold-blooded killers.

  
"Dude..." Ollie started. "Are you, like, actually okay?"

  
"I'm not sure," Eli admitted. "It was all...a lot."

  
"You should get yourself a therapist."

  
"Man, you know we don't have the money for that."

  
Ollie couldn't dispute this, and remained quiet. Finally, they reached the sedan.

  
Eli reached the car and took a frantic look inside, his heart hammering in his chest. He found nothing, and wasn't sure if this was a good thing or not.

  
"There's no bodies," Ollie said. "Shouldn't there be bodies?"

  
Eli realized that Ollie was right. He had heard shots, people had undoubtedly died here, but there were no signs of death. It was like somebody whisked the bodies away.  
Eli wondered if Mason was among them. In any case, he had no idea where he was. He could be anywhere in the wastelands, if he was even alive at all. The thought was visibly heart-wrenching.

  
"Where could he be?" Ollie asked.

  
"I don't know..." Eli replied. "But fuck, where do we begin looking? Should we go to the police?"

  
"This is outside of their jurisdiction, I think." Ollie said. "Plus, they might cover the hole in the wall. If Mason comes back, he'll be stuck outside with no way in."

  
"Kaira said...Kaira said he might have been captured."

  
"By who? You don't think slavers got him, do you?" Ollie sounded shaken.

  
"It could have been the warlord...fuck, Kaira would know where to look, but she's not here."

  
The two sat in silent contemplation and dread for a moment until Eli spoke again.

  
"Well, there's at least some hope..." Eli said. "The last thing Kaira told me was that she'd keep an eye out for Mason."

  
"We've got to do more than that, though, right? We can't just rely on her, can we?" Ollie asked.

  
"That might be our only option..." Eli admitted, though he hated every syllable. "Assuming we found out if and where he's being held, what do we even do? We can't take on an army!"

  
Ollie visibly hated this reality check, but what choice did he have but to concede?

  
"Shit...this sucks." He said, scuffing his foot in the dirt. It seemed a little childish, but Eli knew that Ollie was as broken up about Mason as he was.

  
"We should go back, I guess," Eli said. "If I'm being honest...I fucking hate it out here."

  
Ollie made a noise like he was gonna protest, like there must've been some way to find out what happened to Mason out here, but he clearly thought better of it at the last second.

  
"...Sounds good, man." Ollie finally said, placing a hand on Eli's shoulder. "Let's go."

  
And so the two walked back, hearts heavy with dread and uncertainty.


	17. Arc 1 Epilogue

The cage that Mason lived in made him feel like some kind of circus animal, but he was slowly becoming accustomed to it, as well as the meager meal a day he received with water. For the past month, he had to live with limited shelter and the jeering taunts of passersby.

  
_Off to catch more folks like me,_ he thought bitterly. He thought of his brother, as he often did these days, and wondered if he made the right decision by telling him to run. There was no way Eli could have met the same fate as him the way things were, sure, but the uncertainty of Eli's current state still weighed heavily upon him. He could be home...but he also could have died out there, killed by predators or wastelanders.

  
For a month, he grieved for his mother during the cover of night when no one could see him. He grieved for his brother too, as he found that it was easier to assume the worst than to live with the uncertainty of it all. He had long resigned himself to the fact that he would never see Eli again.

  
Company was sparse in there, and Mason found it to be maddening. He almost wished he had died that night he told Eli to run. Whatever any afterlife held in store for him had to be better than this.

  
His thoughts were interrupted, however, when a young, dark-haired kid came up to see him, carrying his daily ration of food. They couldn't have been much older than fourteen.

  
Mason had heard rumors of this kid. If they showed any attention to you, you were chosen, though for what, Mason wasn't sure.

  
"What do you want?" Mason asked. The kid didn't respond, and merely set the tray of food down with a bottle of water. Mason stared at them expectantly, and the kid stared back at him with placid eyes. Then, they made a series of hand signals that Mason recognized to be sign language, though he didn't understand it.

  
"I don't understand," he said.

  
The kid rolled their eyes and motioned to the tall man approaching them from behind. He was dark skinned and, curiously, thick skinned as if armored. He had violet eyes like chips of ice. Mason recognized this man...the man had appraised him alongside Maria when Mason was first captured. This couldn't be good.

  
The armored man crouched in front of the cage where Mason was sitting.

  
"Cass says," he started. "That today's your lucky day."

  
Now where had Mason heard that before?

  
\-----------------

  
It took a couple of days, as expected, but Kaira made it back home without incident. The trip was lonely, sure, but it was nothing Kaira hadn't gotten used to by that point. Things would finally be back to normal, though, and Kaira welcomed it, to an extent.

  
Still, however, there was no denying that she would miss Eli. She loved her family, but even she had to admit that they didn't show as much overt care for her wellbeing in ten years than Eli did in a couple weeks. She hadn't ever experienced anything like it.

  
At least, not since...

  
Kaira shook her head to clear the thought. But the fact remained that Eli reminded her uncannily of a dear, departed friend, who's death still haunted Kaira even ten years later.  
Kaira made her way up the ladder to the treehouse when she arrived that night. She could hear Joe and Chandler laughing it up on the balcony, but Riley was inside.

  
"Well I'll be damned," he said. "You're here."

  
"Of course I am." Kaira remarked, deadpan. "Where else would I be?"

  
"I don't know, Kaira. I was thinking in Ridgemont with your boyfriend."

  
Of fucking course. Of course Riley would do this.

  
"Why would I do that?" Kaira growled. "Use your brain, numbnuts. Do you really think I would just up and leave everything behind?"

  
"You're soft, Kaira. You always have been." Riley said. "And I hope you know that inviting that city-boy into your home, into OUR home, is the stupidest thing you've ever done. And Dad won't tear you a new one for it, but I have no problem doing it instead."

  
"Nothing happened, Riley, chill the fuck out. He came and left without consequence."

  
"And what happens when the next helpless sap comes through here, huh? What happens when you get caught, and you _will_ get caught, and he sells us out to Maria and her armies?"

  
"How stupid do you think I am?" Kaira snarled. "If that were to happen, I wouldn't have trusted him to begin with! And I _didn't_ trust him, either. I hardly fucking slept while he was here."

  
"And yet," Riley pointed out. "You invited him into our home. Our safehouse. Because you got careless, and a city-boy had to bumble in and save you, and then you think you owe him a debt. I hope you know that stupid is the most flattering thing I can call you in this scenario, because the alternative is that you have absolutely zero regard for the family's survival."

"Yeah?" Kaira asked, her temper flaring. "And what would _you_ have done, if you're so goddamn smart and careful?"

  
"I would have shoved that boy out on his ass where he belongs, and I certainly wouldn't have jeopardized my family's safety to be some sort of big goddamn hero. I wouldn't have tried to get some petty revenge by blowing up one of Maria's compounds with a general inside. Better yet, I wouldn't have gotten myself caught in the first place!"

  
"What's your fucking point?"

  
"My point is, if this is how you handle the family's safety, maybe you shouldn't be a part of this family at all."

  
As furious as Kaira was, even that caught her off guard.

  
"And what are you gonna do about it, big shot?" She challenged. "Gonna throw me out? Gonna kill me? How are you gonna explain that to Joe and Chandler, huh?"

  
The two of them glared at one another for a long time before Riley finally sighed.

  
"I won't do any of that," Riley said. "You _are_ a part of this family. I just think you should start acting like it."

  
With Kaira glaring at him the whole way through, Riley made his way out to the balcony with the others.

  
 _Eat shit, Riley._ She thought.

  
But still, what she did was...objectively a risky decision. Kaira understood that, though she hated that on some level Riley was correct. But it was a decision she had to make. She couldn't just leave Eli to die, no more than Joe could have left her to die when she was just a kid.

  
_But why?_ Kaira thought. Kaira was family, Eli wasn't. He was a perfect stranger from a society that she resented.

  
That's when it hit her. He was her! Like she was all those years ago, he was scared and lost and alone out there in the wasteland. Kaira remembered the fear she felt, and she knew that Eli was feeling the same way when he was lost out there.

  
And yet he still thought to look out for her, in spite of it all. In spite of the fact that she was an aggressive, standoffish stranger who tried to kill him. Could Kaira really leave him there to die after that?

  
Maybe she was going soft.


	18. Arc 2 Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sweet Jesus here comes trouble. And by trouble I mean Arc 2. Warning in advance, this arc is a doozy. I'll post trigger warnings for individual chapters as necessary. If this arc is as hard to read as it was to write then we're gonna need em.

"Kaira Blake, this is common sense." The principal stated. "You are not to bring a knife to school!"

  
The young girl, about ten, sat in the chair opposite the principle, mouthing the words petulantly without the slightest hint of regard for what he was saying. She had heard this a million times by now, and it was getting old.

  
"I promise, it won't happen again Mr. Calloway," Kaira's dad explained.

  
"That's what you said the last three times!" Mr. Calloway replied. "Where is she even getting her weapons?"

  
"It's not like I was gonna use it! Geez." Kaira exclaimed, crossing her arms.

  
"Hush, Kaira," Dad Blake commanded. He turned back to Mr. Calloway. "It's likely my brother, Joe. She spends a lot of time with him after school."

  
"Is that why she fails to get her homework done, too?" Mr. Calloway asked. "Robert, I'm telling you, you _need_ to get your daughter under control. She's a menace enough with that regrettable mutation she has, picking fights with classmates outside of school, and whatnot..."

  
Robert Blake looked at Kaira incredulously.

  
"You've been getting into fights?" He asked. Kaira shrugged.

  
"I always win, so you don't know about it." Kaira replied.

  
"I can only really give you one more chance," Mr. Calloway said to Robert. "I'll have to suspend her for a week, but if you and Aki can't get her under control, I'll have to expel her. And knowing there are no other schools in Cranston, I worry what Kaira's fate will be then."

  
Robert gulped, but Kaira merely sat there, unfazed, testing the edge of her karambit.

  
Kaira finally noticed the tension when she got into the car with her father. His eyebrows were furrowed and his mouth was a straight line. She knew this look all too well. This was the look that meant she was about to get a scolding.

  
"How many times do your mother and I have to tell you not to bring weapons to school?" He asked angrily.

  
"I 'unno." Kaira shrugged. "I wasn't gonna use it, though."

  
"That doesn't matter! If anyone sees it, they're gonna think you'll use it! And besides, what if you get hurt playing with that thing?"

  
"I won't!" Kaira exclaimed. "And I'm not playing! Uncle Joe has been teaching me, and Riley, and Chandler how to use them!"

  
"And he shouldn't be! You're kids, not wastelanders!"

  
"I could be a wastelander kid..." Kaira muttered under her breath.

  
"I'm gonna have to have a talk with Joe. I think he's putting bad ideas in your head."

  
The ride home was quiet, but chilly, not that Kaira particularly cared. And Kaira wasn't all that surprised that her dad didn't take the knife from her hands. After all, Kaira was still learning to control her mutation. Her muscles were structured differently than the other kids. She was strong and fast beyond comprehension, and controlling her movements was like playing a videogame on the highest possible sensitivity setting, and then cranking it up some more. Kaira's father knew this about his daughter, and feared that if he were to take the knife, she would draw it back and break the window of the car.

  
Joe and his own kids were there waiting for Kaira when she arrived home, and Kaira positively beamed out the window at them.

  
"Hi guys!" She shouted when her father pulled into the driveway, sheathing her knife and throwing open the car door so hard its hinges groaned.

  
"Don't break the door!" Her father shouted as she leaped into Joe's arms.

  
"Yer gettin' heavy, girlie! What're you eating?"

  
"You!" Kaira shouted, biting down on Joe's arm.

  
"Hey! Watch that bite strength, kid!" Joe playfully reprimanded, wincing a little from the force of the bite.

  
"Aww, c'mon! I was real gentle that time!" Kaira laughed.

  
"I really doubt it," A sixteen-year-old Riley piped up from below, though he smiled all the same.

  
"Here, I'll show you!" Kaira wriggled her way out of Joe's arms and leaped towards him. Riley humored the little girl and let her bite him.

  
"Now it's your turn!" A thirteen-year-old Chandler cried, lunging towards the girl, gnashing his teeth. Kaira squealed and ran for the door with her youngest cousin in tow.

  
"We need to have a talk, Joe." Robert started once the kids were out of the way. "Kaira's just been suspended for bringing a knife to school."

  
Joe seemed absolutely unfazed by this news. In fact, he rolled his eyes.

  
"Those crusty old geezers need to lighten up," Joe said. "She's right proud of that knife of hers. After all, she's the one who made it!"

  
"She's a ten year old girl, Joe, she shouldn't be making knives!"

  
"There ya go, stifling her creativity! What would the missus think?"

  
"Aki agrees that you're teaching our daughter some questionable stuff, and if you don't stop, you're gonna get her into more trouble than you already have! Kaira's a child of Cranston, not a wastelander. And you're not a wastelander either, so why don't you start raising your kids right, so they can actually make something of themselves?"

  
Riley scowled at Kaira's father, but said nothing. Joe had the situation handled.

  
"Don't tell me how to raise my kids!" Joe reprimanded. "In fact, you should be thanking me! We're basically all that stands between Cranston and the wasteland."

  
"We have a police force, Joe."

  
"Pfft, those pansies sit about their asses all day waiting for something to happen and someone to arrest! They're hardly fit for anything, let alone protecting us from what lies out in the wasteland!"

  
"I don't think you actally give a rat's ass about protecting anybody, either. You just laze about all day and play soldier with your children and mine! And unless you never want to see Kaira again, I want you to march in there and tell her that there will be no more playing soldier."

  
The brothers glared each other down for a moment, before Joe finally conceded with a sigh. But really, he only backed down because he had an idea.

  
"Fine," Joe agreed. "I'll go talk to the girl."

  
Joe walked into the house to see Kaira and Chandler arm wrestling in the living room and Aki, Robert's wife, coming in to see them. She paused when she saw Joe standing in the doorway.

  
"Hello, Joe. Come to take Kaira for the day?" She asked cheerily. Joe liked Aki, she was far less stuffy than his own brother was.

  
"In a bit," he replied. "I'm sure Rob will tell you all about what happened at school today. I'm actually coming in to talk to the little whelp myself."

  
Aki tilted her head curiously, but said nothing. She shrugged and walked down the hall.

  
"Go outside with your brother," Joe told Chandler. "I've gotta talk to the girl over here."

  
"Oooooh, someone's in troooouble!" Chandler jeered as he left the house. Kaira stuck her tongue out at him but then turned to stare at Joe with her big, yellow eyes.

  
"Am I in trouble?" She asked.

  
At that moment, Rob walked in to talk to Aki. He looked real hard at his brother on the way in.

  
"Big trouble, girlie," Joe lied, throwing a wink at Kaira so she'd know he was making a show of it. She smiled knowingly at first, and then frowned unconvincingly. Nonetheless, Robert seemed to be satisfied.

  
"Listen here, your daddy told me about what happened at school today." He said in a hushed tone. Kaira's frown was genuine, then.

  
"Oh," She said.

  
"And he said that unless things change, I can't see you anymore."

  
"No!" Kaira cried.

  
"So here's what I'm proposing," Joe looked behind him to see if Robert and Aki were there. They weren't. "We keep going as we are, but you've gotta keep things on the down-low from now on. When your daddy asks what you're doing with me and the boys, lie. Act real bummed out that you're not doing all this cool stuff anymore."

  
Kaira looked scandalized, but intrigued. Sure, Kaira had hidden things from her parents before, but she had never been _encouraged_ to do so! And by someone she loved and respected so much, no less!

  
"Oh yeah, and no more bringing knives to school. Regular folks don't like that so much. And only fight off-campus and after school. Don't get anybody killed, neither. Can you do that for me, kiddo? A lot rides on this."

  
Kaira looked him hard in the eyes and nodded, a faint, devious smile creeping across her face. Her uncle smiled back at her.

  
"And don't do it again!" He reprimanded with a playful finger wag. Kaira laughed. From in the kitchen, Aki spoke.

  
"She took that well!" Kaira's mother said, hopefully.

  
"Too well..." Robert replied.

  
Nonetheless, Joe ushered Kaira out the door as he always did, with an innocent look to his brother as he passed.

  
"I'm sure it's fine," Aki said. "If anyone can get through to Kaira, it's Joe."


	19. Arc 2 Chapter 2

Kaira spent her days in the wasteland in secret, learning from Joe with Riley and Chandler, learning to fire a gun and wield knives, as well as make them. But a week had passed since Kaira was suspended, and she was back in school, knife-free. And the teacher's first impulse was to check anyway.

  
"It's good to see you back," A boy told Kaira. That boy was Louis, and he was the closest thing to a friend that Kaira had, apart from her cousins. "Hey, you probably didn't hear, but my dad is coming to visit our class today!"

  
_Oh, right. The new police chief,_ Kaira thought. He'd made waves in the community with his good deeds and pleasant demeanor. He helped everyone he ever met, and did it with a smile. He was the sole reason why the police force got its good name. And he was great with kids, to boot. Kaira had never actually met him face to face, though, so she was set to reserve judgement.

  
"Does he even know he's your dad?" Kaira asked bluntly.

  
"Well..." Louis started. "I don't...actually know. Mom says that he's my dad, though, and I believe her."

  
Kaira sort of felt for Louis, in whatever way she could. Imagine if your own father had no idea who you were, and imagine that he'd get all distant every time you spoke to him. But the police chief sounded so nice! So why wouldn't he be extra nice to his own son?

  
Unless, of course, Louis was just claiming that the police chief was his dad for clout. But Kaira knew Louis, and she didn't quite believe that particular rumor.

  
Louis was visibly excited all the same when the police chief entered the classroom.

  
"Class, I'd like to introduce you to our chief of police, Jonah Richards!" The teacher exclaimed.

  
"Just Jonah is fine, thanks," He announced humbly. "I'm here to talk to you about the Cranston police department. Our job is to serve and protect this community, and we'll do everything in our power to keep each and every one of you safe." Jonah's friendly gaze passed over the children in the room. "Now, do any of you have any questions about our police department?"

  
"When did you guys start?" A girl by the name of Rosaline asked.

  
"An excellent question, young lady!" He said. "We were founded long before the settlement of Cranston first rose from the ashes of the Great War. Many think of us just as a remnant of pre-War life, and while that's somewhat true, we've adapted to new threats, like evil wastelanders."

  
Kaira scoffed a little at this. Joe loved wastelander culture, and so Kaira did as well. Surely, they couldn't all be evil. Jonah studied Kaira for a moment or two, his gaze gentle and knowing.

  
"Do you know anything about wastelanders?" He asked Kaira. This took her by surprise. All the other adults at school only paid attention to her in order to reprimand her for something or other.

  
"I know that they like to fight, and shoot guns and stuff," Kaira replied. "And they live in the desert, or the forests pasts the desert." Jonah looked at her curiously.

  
"You sure do know a lot about the wastelands!" He praised, at which Kaira blushed a little. "That's exactly right! Where did you hear all this?"

  
"Um...from my uncle," Kaira said. "He knows everything about the wasteland."

  
Kaira became aware of all the eyes that were on her. It made her a little nervous. Most of Kaira's classmates thought she was weird, abrasive, or intimidating. So to see them staring at her with this level of awe was interesting, to say the least.

  
"Clearly he taught you well!" Jonah said. "You could grow up one day and be part of the wasteland research team, if you wanted. Or if you wanted to fight some bad guys, you could join the police."

  
Kaira's eyes lit up. She always assumed that she would one day move to the wastelands when she was older and be some sort of soldier. She never expected that she might have a future here.

  
Kaira looked at Louis, who stared in admiration at the person he claimed was his father. But curiously, while Jonah's gaze passed over everyone in the room, he seemed to stare past Louis. Kaira wondered why that was.

  
Soon enough, Jonah left the classroom and hours after that, the kids were dismissed from class, buzzing with excitement.

  
Chandler was getting out of class at the same time, and as Kaira went to meet him, she looked back and saw that Louis looked...disappointed.

  
 _I bet it's because his dad won't even look at him. Why is that, anyway?_ Kaira thought.

  
"Let's go!" Chandler shouted to Kaira. And so she took off after him.

  
\-----------

  
"He was actually nice to me! I didn't think that would ever happen!" Kaira explained to her cousins whilst throwing a knife into a target dummy.

  
"He's nice to everybody." Chandler said, throwing a knife of his own. "It's kind of weird."

  
"I don't like how often I see him hanging around school," Riley admitted. "I think it's creepy."

  
"Why is it creepy?" Kaira asked obliviously.

  
"It's just that...well..." Riley seemed to be struggling to get words out. "Whatever, I'm sure it's fine."

  
"No, what is it?"

  
"I'll tell you when you're older."

  
"I'm old enough!" Kaira cried.

  
"Drop it, Kaira."

  
Riley's tone of voice was a signal that he meant it, and so Kaira couldn't protest. Chandler snickered a little.

  
"What are we talking about over here?" Joe asked, coming out of his shack on the edge of Cranston with an ice-cold beer.

  
"Oh, the chief of police came to school today and Riley thinks he's creepy, but he won't tell me why." Kaira replied.

  
"I'll tell you why," Joe said. "Because he's a fuckin cop! Don't trust 'em, girlie, they have it out for folks like us."

  
"You mean wastelanders?" Kaira asked.

  
"And anyone like 'em, yeah. See, cops like to pretend that they 'protect and serve' or whatever, but they do it for clout. And it works! They can get away with anything!" Joe exclaimed. "Come to think of it, almost makes me wish I was one! Ha!"

  
Kaira thought for a moment, testing the edge of the throwing knife she was holding. With how much she trusted Joe, even she found it hard to believe that someone so nice could be that way. But of course she had to believe it! Joe had said it, after all!

  
"You're right Uncle Joe!" Kaira cried. "Fuck the cops!"

  
Joe couldn't help but laugh at her use of language.

  
"That's the spirit, girlie!"

  
And with that, Joe continued training the three kids.


	20. Arc 2 Chapter 3

It was three years later, and Kaira was in seventh grade. She continued to train with Chandler, now sixteen, and Riley, now nineteen, in those three years of her life. She did so in secret, and every time her parents asked what she was doing with her uncle and cousins, she would think of something boring to tell them. Though Kaira continued to get into fights with the other schoolchildren, really anyone who tried to make her feel bad about her mutation, she always did so outside of school so she wouldn't get in trouble. Naturally, she got off scot-free, as she would threaten the other kids to keep quiet or she would beat them up some more.

  
As a result, however, nobody particularly liked her except for Louis, Riley, and Chandler. Those were really her only friends. Everyone else was either too intimidated or too resentful of the girl. But Kaira didn't particularly care that much. Her cousins were her best friends, anyway, and that was all she really needed. Everything else was merely a bonus.

  
One day, a fight broke out in the school between two boys. Kaira was bummed that she didn't know about it until after it had happened, and was even more so when she learned that Chandler was one of the combatants. The fight was grisly, and the loser, who was definitely not Chandler, came away with a badly broken nose.

  
This was the last straw for the school. Kaira managed to stay out of trouble, but Chandler couldn't. As a result, Chandler was expelled.

  
Things changed swiftly after that incident.

  
"Kaira, I have something important to tell ya, and yer not gonna like it," Joe started one day at the Blake residence as Kaira sat with her parents. Kaira stared at him, wondering what the news might be. "Since Chandler's been expelled, we've got little reason to continue sticking around here in Cranston. So we're moving to the wasteland permanently."

  
"Wait, really?" Kaira asked. "But where? Can I still see you?"

  
"'Fraid not, kiddo. We're moving out of the desert entirely."

  
"B-but, we could still visit though!" Kaira turned to look at her parents. "Right?"

  
"Honey, we don't belong in the wasteland," Aki told her daughter gently. "We don't know what lies out there."

  
"Well I do!" Kaira exclaimed. "I wanna go with them!"

  
"No, Kaira," Robert said. "Joe's made his choice, and at least Riley's old enough to go out there if he chooses. I can worry for Chandler all I want, but it doesn't matter. I do have control over this, though, and you're not going."

  
Kaira felt tears well up in her eyes. She knew her father meant it. There was nothing she could do. This couldn't be happening!

  
"Will I...will I ever see you again?" Kaira asked.

  
"Of course you will, kiddo." Joe reassured. "We'll come back to visit once we're settled in out there. Now don't cry, girlie, you're better than that."

  
Kaira wiped the tears from her eyes. At least she would see them again. But life was sure to suck without them. Her parents worked full time, and she had no other friends but Louis, and she wasn't even sure how she managed to accomplish that. She wasn't sure she had it in her to _make_ friends.

  
So Kaira held in her tears, even when it came time to say goodbye. Within days, Joe, Riley, and Chandler were packed up and ready to leave. Kaira remembered what Joe said about her getting to see them again one day, but the loss was still devastating.

  
In the end, the only things Kaira had left to remember them by were memories, and her karambit. She kept it in a little box under her pillow.

  
Things changed even more swiftly after that, and not for the better.


	21. Arc 2 Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> TW: Grooming

The weeks that came after Joe's departure with the boys was nigh unbearable for Kaira. Beyond being sad, she was bored absolutely shitless. For a while, she hung out exclusively with Louis, and would beat up anyone who gave him shit about the fact that his father wanted nothing to do with him. Even that stopped after a while, as the kids began to make fun of Louis for having a crush on a mutant. After that, Kaira had no one, and she became increasingly bitter and angry.

  
While her parents were working, she spent most of her time at Joe's abandoned shack on the edge of town. Being alone sucked.

  
"What are you doing out here, young lady?" Jonah Richard's asked out of the blue one day, driving his patrol car through the neighborhood.

  
"I 'unno." Kaira replied bitterly. Jonah, ever beloved by the townsfolk, still hung about the school, friendly as ever despite Chandler's rumors three years ago. They never quite abated, and Kaira had an internalized mistrust of police officers, anyway, no doubt inherited from Joe.

  
"You usually spend time with your family out here, right?" He asked.

  
"How'd you know?" Kaira asked in return.

  
"Lucky guess," he replied cheerily. "Where have they gone?"

  
"...To the wastelands." Kaira replied after hesitating. What could Jonah do? Arrest them?

  
"I'm sorry, dear." He told her gently. "That must be really hard for you."

  
"It sucks," Kaira admitted.

  
Jonah parked his car and exited.

  
"Why don't you tell me all about it?" 

  
"Why?" Kaira asked suspiciously.

  
"It might make you feel better," Jonah replied. "Don't worry, it's not like I can arrest your family for becoming wastelanders, can I?" He sat down on the curb and motioned her to sit down next to him. Seeing nothing better to do at this moment, she shrugged and sat beside him.

  
"It's just that...I always used to hang out with my cousins," she started. "And now they're gone. And I had one other friend, named Louis, but he stopped hanging out with me too. I'm alone now, and my parents are always working, and it sucks!"

  
Jonah didn't seem to react to Louis's name being mentioned. Instead, he put a hand on Kaira's shoulder.

  
"That sounds terrible, sweetheart. I'm sorry you have to go through all that."

  
"I just...wish I had a friend." Kaira muttered.

  
"I'll tell you what, I'll gladly be your friend." Jonah replied.

  
"Wait, really?" Kaira asked.

  
"Of course! And when you get older, you can be my protege, if you want! I think you'd make an excellent officer."

  
Kaira, in spite of herself, visibly brightened at his words. He was being really nice to her, and she found herself trusting him more and more with each passing second. And he was so beloved by the town that him being her friend might make other kids want to be her friend, too. It was a win-win.

  
"That sounds really great." Kaira smiled, and Jonah smiled too. "What's it like to be a cop?" She asked.

  
"Oh, it's hard work, but it's good work." Jonah replied. "So many people look up to you for guidance. They want you to make them feel safe, and that's what I'm here to do." Jonah rested a hand on Kaira's knee. "To make you feel safe."

  
Admittedly, Kaira did feel safe. Even in the last three years, Jonah was always nice to her, even when no one else was. This meant a lot to her.

  
"I'll tell you what," Jonah continued. "How about you meet me here tomorrow? I can take you on a tour of the police department. You're gonna have to know where you're gonna be working in the future, right?"

  
"I guess so." Kaira replied. "Sounds good!"

  
"Then I'll see you then!" Jonah exclaimed cheerfully. He then got up, entered his patrol car, and with one last wave to Kaira, left.

  
And so Kaira went home that day in brighter spirits.

  
"How was your day, sweetheart?" Kaira's mother asked when she returned home from work.

  
"It was great!" Kaira said. "Well, it sucked at first, but then the chief of police showed up when I was over at Joe's old place."

  
"Really?" Aki asked. "How did that go over?"

  
"He was really nice to me. He said he'd be my friend and that one day I might have a job as a police officer. He said I could be his protege."

  
Aki looked delighted at this, her delinquent daughter, looking to become a police officer. Robert would undoubtedly be pleased as well.

  
"That's great news, honey! I'm proud of you!"

  
God, Kaira wasn't used to hearing that. She knew her parents loved her, sure, but while her father was more of a disciplinarian, her mother seemed always sort of...apathetic? Concerned, but somewhat aloof in her parenting. Definitely more lax where her father was strict. Nonetheless, Kaira felt she did little to be proud of, so hearing this was a rare opportunity.

  
And from what she knew about her parents, they _loved_ Jonah. And if they loved Jonah that much, maybe Kaira would receive more love by extension.

  
Maybe things were looking up after all.


	22. Arc 2 Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> TW: non-explicit csa/date rape, it'll be mentioned frequently till the end of the arc

The next day, after a lonely day at school, Kaira bounded off to her uncle's old house. It felt good to have something to look forward to again, and she couldn't wait to see Jonah there. When she arrived, she found that he was already present in his patrol car. He invited her in.

  
The first thing he did when she entered was hand her a what looked like a breath mint.

  
"It's a mint," he told her simply, smiling placidly.

  
Thinking very little of it, Kaira snatched it from his hand and popped it in her mouth. She immediately grimaced, it tasted terrible. Kaira had to force herself to swallow it, not wanting to spit it out in the car.

  
"Gross! What was that?"

  
"It wasn't good?" Jonah asked, appearing genuine.

  
"No! You try one!"

  
"Haha, I'll just take your word for it." He said. "How was school?" He asked.

  
"Really boring, as usual. But I'm here now!" Kaira exclaimed, choosing to put the mint incident behind her.

  
"That you are!" Jonah laughed. "I'm so glad to see you here. My work gets lonely, too, you know, so it's good to have friends to share the day with."

  
"I didn't know being a cop got lonely." Kaira said.

  
"Sometimes it does. As you might have noticed, not much happens here in ole Cranston."

  
"I thought you'd have, like, cop buddies to hang out with on patrol."

  
"Well I do today!" Jonah replied. "After all, you're here!"

  
"But I'm not a cop," Kaira reminded him.

  
"Not yet, but after today, you'll be that much closer to becoming one. You know, not every kid I meet gets to have a free, VIP tour of the precinct. So you're pretty special!"  
Kaira blushed. She was used to being special in a bad way, but Jonah clearly meant it in a good way.

  
"What's your family like?" Jonah asked. "They must be very proud of you."

  
"Well, not exactly, I don't think. I get into trouble a lot."

  
"What kind of trouble?"

  
"...I don't know if I should tell you." Kaira replied. "You're a cop, after all."

  
"So that kind of trouble, huh?" Jonah asked with a smile. "Don't worry, I won't tell anyone. And I certainly won't arrest you, if that's what you're thinking. Surely, you know what they say about snitches in the wastelands..."

  
"They get stitches," Kaira finished. "Or so I hear."

  
"Right. The point is, your secrets are safe with me. What are friends for?"

  
"Okay...in that case, I get into fights a lot. I used to get into fights on behalf of Louis, but then he ditched me. You're his dad, though, right? Do you know what his deal is?"

  
Something in Jonah's tone shifted then. Kaira found it to be a touch unsettling.

  
"I'm afraid whoever told you that lied to you." Jonah said. "I don't have any children of my own."

  
"Oh..." Kaira replied. "I guess I just assumed..."

  
"Best not to do that." Jonah then returned to his cheerful self. "We've arrived!"

  
The two exited the car and entered the precinct. It was oddly sanitary, the way Kaira supposed that she expected it to be. The place was quiet, and the only other person that Kaira could see was another officer reading a newspaper at the front desk. The man looked up briefly, made a strange face, then returned to his newspaper after a moment.

  
"The first place I want to show you is where we hold the prisoners."

  
Kaira followed him, but something felt increasingly...amiss. She started to feel woozy just walking down the hall.

  
"Where the...prisoners?" Kaira slurred.

  
Jonah turned to her in that moment, at least, Kaira thought it was him. Logically, it had to have been him, but she had a hard time remembering what his face was supposed to look like. For a moment, though, she could have swore he looked like a wolf stalking its prey.

  
But who was the prey?

  
Kaira stumbled, and Jonah caught her.

  
"You're gonna go to sleep now," Jonah's tone was gentle, but there was something else there. Something like anxiety and giddiness wrapped up into a sentence.

The last thing that Kaira felt was fear and Jonah's hands upon her. And then she was out.

  
\----------

  
The deed was done. Jonah made quick work of re-dressing Kaira and carrying her through the precinct to the front entrance.

  
The man at the front desk, still reading his newspaper, never even looked up.


	23. Arc 2 Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> TW: Aftermath of sexual assault

When Kaira finally came to, she was slumped over in Jonah's patrol car. The first thing she noticed was that she felt sicker than she had ever felt in her entire life. The second thing she noticed was the pain, blossoming out over regions that by no means should have been hurting.

  
Kaira was confused. She looked up to see Jonah, his eyes shaded and focused on the road.

  
"...What happened?" She croaked.

  
Silence.

  
Kaira quietly assessed herself once more. She smelled nothing but Jonah's cologne. She felt like shit, and her nether regions were sore as could be. But what did that mean? Why was this happening? What did...

  
What did Jonah do...?

  
Kaira looked at Jonah to ask for an explanation, but found that the words would not come out. How could they?

  
The car pulled over against the curb. Jonah reached over Kaira to open the door, and she found herself flinching. He unbuckled her seatbelt for her and motioned for her to get out of the car. Kaira had little qualms about doing so. She wanted to run. She wanted to run fast and far if only her wobbly legs would carry her. She stumbled out of the car and nearly fell, her head spinning.

  
"Take care of yourself," Jonah told her, and his tone was cold as could be. So cold it shook Kaira to her core. And with that, he shut the door and drove off.

  
Home. Kaira had to get home. She assessed her surroundings. She was on her street, so her house was not far away. She could see it just down the street. So towards home she limped, trying not to vomit.

  
Getting home felt like it took eons, but Kaira made it in due time, and only stopped to retch once along the way. It wasn't long until numbness consumed her, and Kaira realized with a start that it was because of adrenaline. Her heart was hammering wildly in her chest.

  
"How did your time with Jonah go?" Robert asked cheerily as Kaira walked in the door.

  
But what could Kaira say? How could she explain how sick she felt, or why she hurt so bad, or why she could feel what felt like blood running down her legs? It wasn't possible. Kaira was still reeling from the fear of it all. So she did what she always used to do, and lied.

  
"Fine." She answered automatically, her voice lacking any emotion.

  
"Just fine?" Robert asked.

  
"Yeah." Kaira nodded.

  
No doubt thinking that Kaira was being obstinant, her father decided not to press the issue further, and continued reading the paper. Kaira, in turn, shambled into the bathroom and shakily pulled down her pants.

  
She learned then that she was, in fact, bleeding. That would certainly explain the soreness.

  
But what could have happened, unless...

  
Unless...

  
Kaira wasn't stupid. She was more than capable of piecing two and two together. And it wasn't long before she figured out just what had happened to her, though she didn't quite have the words to describe it. And it didn't take her long to figure out who must've been responsible.

  
In spite of herself, Kaira found herself sobbing. This was a terrifying conclusion for her to come to, but it was the only one that made sense. It was the only thing that could have happened to her. She felt dirty. She felt ashamed.

  
That fucking _mint_. It wasn't a mint at all! And Kaira fell for it, every step of the way. She remembered every time he ever touched her, no matter how mundane, and it made her want to scrub her very skin off.

  
_How could I have fallen for that?_ She thought despairingly.

Her thoughts soon overwhelmed her, and she found herself retching once again into the toilet.

  
"Kaira?" Aki called from behind the locked door. "Are you okay in there?"

  
_No, no, no, no, no, no, no._

  
"Yeah!" She called back, stifling a sob.

  
"Are you sure?" Her mother asked. "You sound like you're throwing up."

  
"...I'm just feeling sick!" Kaira replied.

  
"Could you come out then? I should take your temperature if you're not feeling well."

  
What could Kaira say? She wiped herself, pulled her pants back up, wiped away the tears, and opened the door much harder than she intended to. It slammed against the wall of the bathroom, the doorknob leaving a dent.

  
Kaira stood there quietly, pretending that nothing was wrong, while her mother placed a hand on her forehead.

  
"You don't have a temperature..." Aki said.

  
"It's probably a stomach bug," Kaira replied flatly. "I'm just...gonna go to bed." Kaira turned to walk away, leaving behind her vaguely confused mother.

  
When Kaira shut the door to her room, she threw herself onto the bed, hoping for sleep, praying that this was all a bad dream.


	24. Arc 2 Chapter 7

It didn't take long for Kaira's family to realize that something was amiss, though the nature of how wrong things really were, they hadn't the foggiest clue. Kaira was frustratingly quiet about whatever she was dealing with. All they knew was that Kaira was seriously sick. She spent the next three days in bed but hardly sleeping, and throwing up at random intervals. It became enough that Kaira's parents would finally take her to see a doctor.

  
"So what brings you in today?" The doctor began.

  
"Our daughter has been really sick for three days," Robert said. "We don't know why, so we figured you could shed some light on the situation."

  
"I might just be able to do that." The doctor turned to Kaira. "What's your name, sweetheart?"

  
"...It's Kaira," she grumbled after a moment's pause.

  
"Excellent. So, Kaira, I've been told that you're sick. You hardly sleep, you hardly eat, and yet you still throw up at random. Does that sound right?"

  
Kaira shrugged, not daring to look the doctor in the eye.

  
"Ooookay. So the first thing that comes to mind is that you might have some sort of nasty stomach bug or a food aversion. Do you remember eating anything strange before this all started? Something that didn't sit well in your stomach?"

  
Kaira thought back immediately to the mint. The fucking mint that started it all. The one she felt she was foolish enough to have fallen for. The thought wasn't just uncomfortable, it was humiliating. And furthermore, it would open the door for her to have to reveal the most humiliating thing to ever happen to her.

  
What would happen if she told them the truth? It's not like anyone would even believe her, would they?

  
_Hey, so, Jonah Richards, beloved chief of police, fed me a phony mint and had sex with me while I was asleep!_ Kaira thought bitterly. The very thought of it nearly made her gag.

  
She couldn't tell anyone. She'd have to take this to her grave.

  
"No," Kaira finally replied. The doctor seemed satisfied by this answer.

  
"Well then, we found no abnormalities regarding your vital signs, except for an elevated heart rate. Are you scared of me, Kaira?" The woman's tone was gentle and kind, but Kaira couldn't trust it. She had heard that tone before.

  
Once again, Kaira shrugged.

  
"I can promise you, there's nothing to worry about. But I think that you might just have a stomach bug. Go home and get some rest, okay?"

  
Kaira nodded, still looking away.

  
Robert and Aki looked suspiciously at one another. It wasn't like Kaira to be so quiet and aloof. But what could they do but listen to the doctor?

  
So they ushered Kaira home and sent her to bed, where she spent the next few days, but barely slept all the same.

  
\----------

  
A week had passed since Kaira's fateful encounter with Jonah, and Kaira was feeling less sick, so her parents made her go to school. She usually walked alone and this time was no different.

  
_Maybe things will go back to normal._ Kaira thought. Normal sucked, but at least she was used to it. She still had to admit that she felt more lethargic than usual, but she figured it was because she was hardly sleeping. The reason for that was that every time sleep found its way to her, she was plagued with unsettling nightmares. And Jonah's shaded face was always front and center. Some of those nightmares brought her back to the patrol car and felt so real it was like she was reliving the event. This terrified her.

  
And so Kaira fought against sleep every single night.

  
As Kaira approached the school, she saw a lone patrol car. This certainly wasn't unusual, and it was always...

  
_Jonah._

  
Kaira spotted him exiting the car, no doubt coming to talk to some class or other. She stood frozen in place, her heart racing madly, staring at him like a prey animal who had just spotted a predator.

  
Without thinking, she did the next thing a prey animal would do, and ran. In that moment, adrenaline replaced her lethargy, and she ran faster and farther than she ever had before in her life.

  
Kaira's heart pounded hard in her chest, and an intrusive thought pushed its way to the front of her mind of Jonah chasing her in his patrol car. Not daring to look back and check, she pushed herself harder and ran even faster, but she had to find someplace to hide.

  
Joe's place was the first place she thought of, but the despairing thought hit her that it was the first place Jonah would probably look. The second place would be her own home, and so Kaira couldn't go there either. But where did that leave her?

  
The wasteland. That was it. If she could only go far enough, the police wouldn't patrol that area.

  
So Kaira struck out across the desert town until she found its edge, and ran even further beyond that. As soon as she was sure she was safe, she collapsed into the desert sands, her legs suddenly aching, trying to catch her breath.

  
Kaira resolved herself not to go to school ever again after that day.


	25. Arc 2 Chapter 8

"We just got a call from Mr. Calloway. You haven't been to class in a week!" Robert began.

  
Kaira should have expected this, but she had other things on her mind and so she didn't. In hindsight, though, she wondered why it took so long for anyone to notice. She figured it was because she'd been reported sick to the school. Perhaps they had given her some leeway in returning. Hell, her teacher probably didn't want her back to begin with.

  
"I know staying home from school was fun, but you can't get used to it, Kaira. You still have to get an education." Robert said.

  
_Fun._ Kaira scoffed. The past week and a half had been anything but fun.

  
"Why are you skipping class? I want you to answer me."

  
"I don't have to tell you anything," Kaira challenged.

  
"Yes. You do. I'm your father, Kaira. I'm entitled to know if there's something going on."

  
"Yeah? Well you should work on that. Entitlement isn't a good thing, you know."

  
Robert took a deep breath. Kaira was apparently committed to being frustrating.

  
"Listen to me. I want what's best for you, and if you think I'm wrong, I don't care. You're going to school, even if I have to drive you there myself."

  
"Why do I need to go to school so goddamn bad anyway?" Kaira asked, furious. Robert's eyes flashed at her use of language.

  
"Listen to you! You sound just like your uncle!"

  
"Good!" Kaira cried.

  
"No, not good! He wasted his life, just like you're trying to, and he never made anything of himself! And neither will his boys! And I'll die before I let you do the same."

  
"So die, then!" Kaira screamed. Robert's eyes widened.

  
"Go to your room. Now. You're going to school tomorrow whether you like it or not."

  
Kaira got up from the couch and stomped out of the room down the hall.

  
Later on, Aki knocked on the door to her room and entered. She saw Kaira sitting on her bed with her trusty karambit in her hands. She had obviously been crying.

  
"What are you doing with that, honey?" Aki asked. Kaira shrugged in response. "I heard you got in a fight with your dad. What was that all about?"

  
"Nothing," Kaira replied obstinantly.

  
"Sweetheart, I know it's something. I know you and your dad have disagreements sometimes, but I hear things got kind of nasty."

  
"I told you, it's nothing." Kaira snapped.

  
Aki stared at her for a moment, then another. Finally, she sighed.

  
"Alright. You can talk to me when you're ready." Aki left the room, then.

  
 _I can't, though,_ Kaira thought bitterly. The thought of telling anyone what was really wrong, even her own parents, filled her with unimaginable anxiety. But in the meantime, what freaked her out more was the thought of having to go to school. There was no way she could do it, not with Jonah constantly there. The thought of seeing his face filled her with dread.

  
Why did this have to happen? And why was Jonah always there? Was he looking for her, specifically? So he could do more awful things to her?

  
No. She wouldn't give him that chance again.

  
Kaira formulated a plan that night. To hell with her dad, she wasn't going to school again.


	26. Arc 2 Chapter 9

Kaira got little sleep last night, as usual, but she made sure to wake up early. She had to, before her dad would inevitably drag her off to school. But she couldn't let that happen.

  
In the early hours of the morning, she opened the window to her room and snuck out while her family still thought that she was asleep.

  
 _The wasteland,_ She thought. _I'll just run back out there._ But the sight of a patrol car rolling down the street made her jump. Her heart pounding, she jumped into the bushes in front of her house.

  
There she waited, long after the patrol car passed. Eventually, she heard the window of her bedroom shut. Her dad undoubtedly knew she was missing now. He was probably furious. Kaira knew she couldn't leave the safe cover of the bushes then. There were too many threats.

  
So Kaira waited there for hours, thinking about what her next move might be. Her father was likely privy to her escape method this time: he was not a stupid man. So Kaira would have to try to outsmart him. But how long could she keep it up?

  
_Until I get expelled, I guess. I wonder how long that'll take._ Kaira knew her dad would never forgive her if her truancy got her expelled, but right now, Kaira had bigger fish to fry. She couldn't afford to care with everything that was going on.

  
Eventually, Kaira became tired and couldn't fight sleep. She dozed off, curled up in the bushes in front of the house. She prayed she wouldn't dream, but her dreams were fitful anyway.

  
When she awoke, it was because she heard a voice calling her name.

  
"Kaira? Is that you?"

  
Kaira awoke with a start to find that her arm was sticking out of the bushes and a girl her age was looking in. Kaira whipped her arm back into the bushes and glared like a caged animal at the girl.

  
Kaira recognized the girl from her class. Her name was Rosaline, and she was an overachiever and probably the most popular girl in school. There once was a time when the girl tried to be nice to Kaira, but Kaira was always less than receptive. By the time Kaira became the loneliest person in school, Rosaline had stopped trying to befriend her.

  
So why was she here now?

  
"Why are you in the bushes?" She asked.

  
"What's it to you?" Kaira asked grouchily. Rosaline seemed a little taken aback, but she answered honestly.

  
"I haven't seen you in school lately. Are you okay?"

  
"Fine," Kaira lied. Kaira was a practiced liar, sure, but anxiety made the lie horribly unconvincing. She hoped Rosaline would take the hint anyway and leave her alone. But instead, Rosaline studied her for a moment. Her gaze became sympathetic, and her next words changed everything for Kaira.

  
"He got you, huh?" She asked in a hushed tone.

  
Kaira's eyes widened. Her jaw dropped. Somehow, she knew exactly what the girl meant.

  
"H-how did...?" Kaira choked out.

  
"...He got me, too."

  
Rosaline extended a hand to Kaira to pull her out of the bushes. Hesitantly, Kaira took it. When she was out, she stared hard at Rosaline, but for once, there was no malice in her gaze.

  
"I saw you get into his car, and I had a sick feeling I knew what was going to happen next," Rosaline said. Tears welled up in Kaira's eyes, threatening to spill over.

  
"...Why did this happen?" Kaira asked shakily. Rosaline hugged her.

  
"I wish I knew."

  
Kaira didn't know if having someone else who had even the slightest idea what she went through was a pain or a relief, but Kaira lost it all the same. She cried hard into Rosaline's shoulder, and the girl held her through it. There came a point where Rosaline started crying too.

  
When at last Kaira calmed down a little, Rosaline started to explain herself.

  
"He did the same thing to me," she said. "He offered me a terrible-tasting mint and I passed out. When I woke up I was hurting...down there...and I was so scared and ashamed when I finally pieced it together."

  
"He's the reason I won't go to school," Kaira said, wiping her nose. "He's always there!"

  
Rosaline nodded her head knowingly.

  
"And I can't believe I fell for that trick of his! I feel so stupid!" Kaira cried, anger bubbling over.

  
"You're not stupid, Kaira." Rosaline told her. "I fell for it, too. And for a while, I thought that maybe what happened to me was my fault. But then I realized, it wasn't my fault at all!"

  
"What do you mean?" Kaira asked bitterly.

  
"You know that saying? Fool me once shame on you?"

  
"I guess."

  
"Right! Jonah tried to get us to trust him so that he could get away with doing horrible things to us! That's his fault, not ours!"

  
Kaira stared at Rosaline, realization dawning on her face. The whole time, Kaira had been blaming herself for what happened to her. She blamed herself for falling for what appeared to be a blatant trick. But then Kaira remembered how Jonah tried to get close to her, and how he tried to be her friend. She remembered him touching her, whether on the shoulder or the leg, and wondered if it was a way of testing her boundaries.

  
She realized that his attack was one hundred percent pre-meditated. Kaira's anger had been misdirected this whole time. Instead of hating herself, she realized she should have been hating him.

  
And in that moment, Kaira felt rage like she had never felt before. Rosaline took a step backwards, no doubt seeing the way Kaira's body tensed like a coiled viper.

  
"I HATE HIM!" Kaira cried as if her voice could break windows. Rosaline touched Kaira's shoulder, and Kaira turned to see the look of both worry and sympathy on her face.

  
"We have to stop him," Rosaline spoke after a moment.

  
"I think I know how..." Kaira muttered, thinking about driving her karambit into his stupid, terrifying face. She saw the hopeful look on Rosaline's face and added: "I'll just kill him!"

  
To her surprise, Rosaline looked vaguely horrified.

  
"Woah, I know how you feel, but I don't think that's necessary! ...Look, I think I have a plan. Maybe if more people knew what he was doing, the town would have to do something about him. Maybe they'll put him in jail, or something! He can't hurt anybody there!"

  
Kaira thought about it for a moment. It didn't seem as...satisfying. But it would probably work. It seemed as rational a plan as any.

  
"So what do we do?" Kaira asked.

  
"We have to tell people what happened to us."

  
Kaira felt the blood drain from her face at this. How the hell was she supposed to do that? The thought of telling anyone made Kaira feel like she would pass out.

  
"It's not gonna be easy," Rosaline continued. "But we have to suck it up and do it." She looked down at her watch. "Oh, I have to go," she said. "But tomorrow after school, meet me by the big tree on the edge of town. We'll talk more there. Bye Kaira!"

  
Rosaline jogged home, and Kaira was left standing there with a look of dumbstruck shock on her face.

  
"KAIRA!"

  
Robert came home early that day, and Kaira winced. She could tell he was furious.

  
"Where were you this morning?!" He asked angrily. "I thought you ran away! I looked everywhere for you!"

  
"Who cares?" Kaira grumbled.

  
"You're insufferable! And I know you ran off to avoid having to go to school! Are you looking to get expelled?!"

  
"...Maybe." Kaira shrugged. Robert pinched the bridge of his nose in exasperation.

  
"Get in the car. We're going to school so you can apologize for missing class." Robert grabbed Kaira's arm. She forcefully tore her arm away.

  
"No!" She cried "I don't wanna go back there!"

  
Robert prepared a harsh rebuke, but paused when he saw the fear on his daughter's face.

  
"Kaira...you have got to tell me what's wrong. What's gotten into you?"

  
Kaira remembered what Rosaline said. This could be an opportunity to make things better. This could be the catalyst for justice to be done.

  
"It's because...I...J-"

  
But the words wouldn't come. Kaira froze. 

  
"It's because what?" Robert asked.

  
She couldn't do it. Robert sighed.

  
"...Fine. But if you won't tell me, will you at least tell your mother?"

  
Kaira stared down at her feet and shrugged. Robert recognized it as a no.

  
"...We'll talk later," Robert said, and walked with Kaira to the door.


	27. Arc 2 Chapter 10

The next day, Kaira couldn't escape the house like she wanted to. Her father was up before she was and he had locked the window shut from the outside. When he entered her room, she was wide awake.

  
"Get ready for school, Kaira," was all he said, and Kaira could feel her heart racing at the thought. But there was no way her father was going to let her out of going. 

  
Shakily and automatically, she packed up her backpack and put on something that wasn't her pajamas. This was going to be a tough morning.

  
Her mother made her something to eat, and Kaira barely touched it. Kaira's mom was used to this by now, and Kaira was lucky she didn't ask any questions about it. Though she looked on with a concerned expression on her face.

  
Afterward, she got in the car without a single word to her father. She didn't ignore him intentionally: her thoughts merely drowned his words out. Eventually he gave up on trying to talk to her.

  
When they approached the school, Kaira was alert with anxiety. Hardly daring to breathe, she scoped out the front of the school for that familiar police cruiser.

  
But there was nothing.

  
Thank god.

  
Kaira's father said goodbye when he dropped her off, but she didn't reply. When she entered the classroom, she was alarmed to see many an eye upon her. Some looked at her as if they expected that she died. Among them was Louis, who stared at her with awe and then looked away before anyone could notice.

  
Then she locked eyes with Rosaline, who looked both stunned and somewhat delighted to see her there. Though Kaira's heart still raced, she calmed down just a touch when she was faced with someone friendly, someone who knew what she'd been through and had been through the same thing herself.

  
Kaira flinched when she heard the teacher call her name.

  
"Kaira! Where have you been?" Her tone was accusatory, like Kaira had showed flagrant disrespect to her by missing her class for such a long time. Her approach was definitely to humiliate Kaira in front of her peers. It made Kaira angry.

  
"Nowhere." Kaira growled challengingly, but she didn't look her teacher in the eye.

  
"You should have been in class, young lady. Or do you want to turn out like your regrettable cousin?"

  
"What's it to you?" Kaira snarled. This woman was clearly looking for an opportunity to get her in trouble. Kaira, however, was more than willing to take the bait.

  
"What did you say to me? Is this how you treat your elders?"

  
"So what if it is?! I don't care!" Kaira was up in her teacher's face, the whole class staring at her. Kaira threw a sideways glance at Rosaline, who looked on anxiously.

  
This was perfect. Kaira had gotten lucky today with Jonah's absence, but there was no telling when he would return. She could come face to face with him today, if she wasn't careful. But perhaps she didn't have to be careful. If she could just get in enough trouble, she'd be out of school. Maybe for good. She'd still have to worry about seeing Jonah around town, but at least she'd feel safer.

  
"Would you like to take a trip to Mr. Calloway's office?" Kaira's teacher growled threateningly.

  
Kaira looked from her teacher to Rosaline, past all the gawking faces. Rosaline was shaking her head and mouthing the word "no". Kaira wondered how Rosaline could still find it in her to be so well-behaved after what had happened to her. Wasn't she terrified as well?

  
Kaira stared at Rosaline, and Rosaline stared pleadingly back. What could Kaira do?

  
"No, ma'am." Kaira grumbled under her breath to her teacher.

  
"I thought so. Now sit down."

  
A few boys in the back of the class snickered at the display, and Kaira wanted nothing more than to beat the snot out of them. Maybe she'd ambush them after class, like she always did when Joe and the boys still lived there.

  
"Thank you," Rosaline mouthed to Kaira as Kaira sat down at her desk.

  
"I hope it was worth it," Kaira muttered.

  
\-----------

  
Rosaline hung out with her friends at lunch. Kaira sat alone, but she stared over at the girl. She wondered what they were talking about. She wondered why Rosaline looked like she was genuinely having a good time when Kaira was so fearful and miserable.

  
By the time school got out, Jonah was parked in front. Kaira froze hard when she saw him, hoping against hope that he wouldn't notice her. She jumped high into the air when someone put a hand on her shoulder.

  
"I'm sorry!" Rosaline said. "But he's distracted right now. We can make a run for it!"

  
It was true, as far as Kaira could tell. The patrol car was swarmed by a squadron of children, excitedly asking him questions. Kaira could barely see him, but seeing even just that much made her want to pass out.

  
So she followed Rosaline's lead and took off at a brisk walk, her heart hammering as she passed the patrol car. In spite of her shorter legs, she was naturally faster than Rosaline by virtue of her mutation.

  
"Walk slower!" Rosaline reminded her. "He'll see you if you run!"

  
"Have you done this before?" Kaira squeaked. It took every nerve in Kaira to match Rosaline's pace.

  
"More times than I can count. This is the best time to leave, because he's so distracted he won't see you."

  
Finally, the coast was clear as they turned a corner. They were out of eyeshot for sure, now.

  
"It was really hard for me too, at first," Rosaline said. "But I promise it gets easier. We're heading to the tree, remember?"

  
"Right," Kaira replied. Though something didn't sit right with her. "Why are you...even doing all this?"

  
"All what?"

  
"Going to school. If I didn't listen to you, I would've gotten myself expelled. I _wanted_ to get expelled. I'd be safe from him, then, if I was just at home all the time." Kaira felt frustrated. Why _did_ she think to listen to the girl? Perhaps she knew something that Kaira didn't?

  
"Because then you wouldn't have a future! You couldn't get a job when you grow up or anything." Rosaline saw the look that Kaira gave her, and continued. "At least, that's what my parents say. What do you want to do when you grow up?"

  
"I dunno," Kaira replied. "When Jonah pretended to be my friend, he said I could be a cop. That's what I wanted to be for a little while, but now I...I don't think I can even look at another cop for as long as I live. What I really want to do is live out in the wasteland with my uncle and cousins, but my stupid parents won't let me."

  
"I don't think I like the wasteland," Rosaline admitted. "It gives me the creeps."

  
"But I bet you'd be safer out there. You wouldn't have to worry about _him_."

  
"Yeah, but I'd have to worry about a whole bunch of other stuff, too."

  
The two girls talked about the wasteland for a while until they reached the large tree on the outskirts of town. In spite of herself, Kaira found that she felt calm around Rosaline. It was a breath of fresh air compared to the nigh perpetual anxiety she'd been feeling since the incident.

  
Rosaline climbed up the tree to sit on the highest sturdy branch. When Kaira stared up at her in confusion, she had this to say:

  
"I like being high up. It makes me feel safer. You should try it!"

  
Kaira shrugged and climbed the tree after her, swaying a little as she moved to sit on the branch.

  
"Huh." Kaira stared down at her dangling feet. It was neat to be up this high.

  
"So," Rosaline started. "First order of business: how do we bring Jonah to justice?"

  
"Your plan was to tell people what happened to us, right?" Kaira continued staring down at the ground. "But there's a problem."

  
"What is it?"

  
"I can't do it." Kaira replied. "I had the opportunity to tell my dad yesterday, but the words wouldn't come out. I just...froze. Is that dumb?"

  
Rosaline stared at Kaira sympathetically.

  
"It's not dumb," she said. "You're just not ready yet, that's all."

  
"When will I be ready, do you think?"

  
"I don't know." Rosaline replied. "But I'm gonna tell everybody about my experience. Maybe if I tell enough people, someone will do something about him, and we'll never have to worry about him again."

  
"...Are you sure that they'll even believe you?" Kaira asked. Rosaline sounded way more sure than Kaira was. "I know my parents wouldn't. They love him."

  
"Truth be told," Rosaline replied. "My parents are friends of Jonah. And the reason I'm so okay around him is because I have to be. They have him over for dinner sometimes."

  
Kaira's jaw dropped. That was horrible!

  
"Why would they do that?! That's evil!" Kaira cried. Rosaline shrugged in response.

  
"They just...really like him. He still acts all nice to me, but he tells me that what happened to me is a special secret between us. I broke that secret by telling you, and I'm gonna break that secret even more by telling everybody."

  
Even Kaira couldn't help but admire her courage. She was a braver person than Kaira. And what if Rosaline was right? If Kaira wasn't ready now, then someday, she might be. The thought gave her some much-needed hope.

  
"Do you really think that someone will believe you?" Kaira asked hopefully.

  
"I don't know, but someone's got to!"

  
That was another thing that Kaira admired about Rosaline: her optimism. Kaira figured Rosaline had to be as scared and embarrassed as Kaira was, and yet, here she was, ready to take on the whole town. Optimism and courage. Both were things that Kaira seemed to lack. But she tried to stay hopeful regardless. It was hard not to be when faced with such unfettered positivity.

  
"One last thing," Kaira started. "Rosaline's kind of a long name. Can I call you Rose?"

  
The girl smiled.

  
"Of course! Everybody calls me that anyway."

  
The two parted ways after a while, but they agreed to meet again after school every day. Rose's work would take place on the weekends after she had done her homework for the week. As for Kaira, her task was to one day be ready to tell the town her story.


	28. Arc 2 Chapter 11

A week passed, and every day, Kaira and Rose would hang out in the old tree after school. Kaira took comfort in her strength as the two of them walked past Jonah's patrol car. The first person that Rose told about her predicament was the teacher.

  
It didn't go well.

  
"Mrs. Carson didn't believe me," Rose started glumly when Kaira asked. "She thought I was making a joke."

  
"How much did you tell her?" Kaira asked.

  
"Well...I couldn't tell her exactly what happened, because I was asleep when Jonah did that stuff to me."

  
Kaira shivered. She didn't even want to know everything that transpired that fateful day. She hoped she'd never know for the rest of her life.

  
"I told her about the pain," Rose continued. "But she told me it was just a sign that I was becoming a woman. I told her they weren't period cramps, but she insisted that they were. I think I annoyed her..."

  
"Well fuck her, anyway," Kaira retorted. "I never liked that woman." Rose shrunk a little at Kaira's use of language, but didn't respond to it.

  
"I think the next person I tell should be Principal Calloway. Maybe he can at least keep Jonah from coming to school."

  
Kaira grimaced. She didn't like Mr. Calloway either.

  
\------------

  
Another week passed, and the story was the same. Rose told Mr. Calloway what happened to her, and he chided her for making up gossip.

  
"'The chief of police is a good man,' he said." Rose told Kaira once they got to the tree. "'And I won't stand for the creation of sick rumors about him!'" She spoke in a mocking voice that made Kaira giggle, in spite of herself. She really nailed the impersonation.

  
Despite the subject matter, Rose didn't seem the least bit disheartened, luckily.

  
"I'll just have to try again with someone else!" She said.

  
"Who's next?" Kaira asked.

  
"I'm not sure yet...but I know that my parents are friends with some powerful people in town, like the judge! I could go to him and tell him what happened."  
Admittedly, Kaira didn't know the judge all that well. She knew of him, sure, but they had never really crossed paths. Kaira didn't imagine that the lawful types would particularly like her much anyway.

  
So why did Rose take so kindly to her? That's what Kaira didn't understand.

  
"Hey, um..." Kaira started. "Why do you...even like me? Nobody else does. Probably not even my parents. But you always tried to be my friend, even when I was mean to you. Why is that?"

  
"Well, it's true that I always thought you were kinda scary, but I felt bad because the other kids would say such mean things about you. But I thought you could't be all bad, even if I was a little afraid of you. That's why I kept trying to talk to you." Rose said. "And I was right! Even if you are a little scary, you're not bad at all!"

  
"Huh." Kaira wasn't sure how much she believed her. That she wasn't bad at all. Kaira always felt like she was pretty bad. She was a weird, scary, violent girl with weird, scary, violent interests. "What makes you say I'm not bad?"

  
"I think it was because I saw you cry. It reminded me that you were a scared kid, just like me. It sounds kinda silly, but I really knew you weren't bad then. And now you're helping me take down the chief of the police so he can't hurt any more kids."

  
"But I'm not even really doing anything though..." Kaira muttered. "I tried to tell my parents, but the words just wouldn't come out. I got all shaky and felt like I was gonna pass out."

  
"That's okay!" Rose exclaimed. "I mean, it sucks that you feel like that, but I don't blame you, you know?" Rose's tone dropped, as if she were telling Kaira a secret, when she added: "I still haven't told my parents."

  
"What?" Kaira asked, incredulous. She would have thought that Rose's parents would be the first people she'd tell.

  
"I know...but they're such good friends with Jonah that...I'm really worried they won't believe me if I tell them."

  
"But...two people haven't believed you already. Why are your parents any different?"

  
"Because they're my parents! They're supposed to believe me, but they really love Jonah, and I'm afraid of how disappointed they'll be if they _do_ believe me. I don't want to disappoint my parents."

  
"Psh, I disappoint my parents all the time!" Kaira said. "It kind of sucks at first, but then you get used to it."

  
"I wish it was that easy for me..."

  
Kaira and Rose were quiet for a bit before Rose spoke again.

  
"But anyway, I really am glad you're here, even if you can't tell anybody what happened to you yet. I really couldn't do this without you, you know."

  
"Why's that?" Kaira asked.

  
"Because you're supporting me. If I didn't have you, I'd have no one."

  
"What about your friends, though? You have a lot of those."

  
"Yeah but...between you and me, I think they only like me because they think I'm important somehow. Whenever i hang out with them, they're always asking me to help them with homework, and nothing else. It feels kind of nice to be wanted, but it's like...that's all I'm good for. But I don't feel that way with you. It feels like I'm doing something really meaningful. I think you might be my best friend."

  
And Rose smiled so genuinely that Kaira could only blush.

  
"I think...you know..." Kaira struggled to get the words out. "I mean, you too. Kinda. I...don't really have anyone but you so...thanks."

  
"What are friends for?"

  
_Right. Friends._ Kaira thought. And though she'd never admit it, Kaira felt something else there too.


	29. Arc 2 Chapter 12

The weeks went on, and it was the same old story.

  
The judge refused to take Rose seriously, so Rose started talking indiscriminately to everyone around her, even those she called her friends. The adults in her life were utterly useless, to say the least. Most of the adults Rose encountered weren't willing to even hear her out. Some walked past her as if she were a blatant snake oil vendor. Some chided her for starting gossip. One woman believed her, but winked and told her she was a lucky girl. Rose thought she'd have more luck with kids her age, but several started jeering about how gross Rose's story was. All refused to handle the situation with the care and compassion it needed.

  
Kaira could see the change in Rose during that time. Slowly she became desperate and forlorn. What used to be a fun and productive meeting among friends became akin to a routine funeral. Nothing much remained but tales of abject failure. Kaira's heart went out to Rose, but with every failure, Kaira became less and less willing to tell even her own parents. There came a point where she stopped trying altogether. Rose knew this, but said nothing.

  
When Kaira asked who was next, Rose replied simply that she didn't know.

  
Kaira would get her answer that weekend.

  
She could tell that Rose had been crying, the only other time this had happened since they'd first connected. Rose didn't even bother to climb the tree like she always did. She was absolutely distraught.

  
"What's - " Kaira started.

  
"I told my parents!" Rose cried, quite literally.

  
Kaira already knew where this was going.

  
"I'm sorry..."

  
"I shouldn't be here right now. I snuck out because I had to come see you."

  
"What happened?" Kaira asked. Rose sniffled, and then began her story.

  
"My parents told me that Jonah was a good man, and that they didn't believe any of what I was saying. They yelled at me for making up 'horrible stories' about him. And then they...they _called_ Jonah. Jonah told them that I was being ridiculous and that he was sad that I, of all people, would be saying something like this. They actually believed him over me...and then they grounded me...said they wanted me to learn a lesson."

Kaira stared at her, mouth agape, angry and horrified.

  
"I'm so scared, Kaira...now Jonah knows I told his secret. What if he comes after me? What if he hurts me again?"

  
"You can stay at my place!" Kaira said. "You can hide there, and sleep in my room, and..."

  
Rose barely stifled a sob.

  
"But I'll get in so much trouble if I do that. I'm in enough trouble as it is."

  
"Fuck that!" Kaira exclaimed. "We should run away to the wastelands! We can find my uncle and my cousins. They'll know what to do! And we'll never have to worry about Jonah ever again! We'll be safe there!"

  
Rose looked like she was considering it, but then she slowly shook her head.

  
"I...almost want to. But my parents will never forgive me. And what kind of life would I have out there?" Rose looked down at her feet. "What kind of life do I have now?"

  
"What?" Kaira asked.

  
"I don't think anything's ever gonna change. And if I run away, then Jonah is just going to hurt more people. There's no winning!" Rose sobbed again. "I think I might just be done for."

  
"You don't really believe that, do you?" In spite of her words, even Kaira could feel her hope dwindling. But Rose had it worse in that moment, and Kaira was overcome by a need to be strong for her.

  
"I think it's time to give up..." Rose admitted. "Nothing is ever gonna get better, so why try?"

  
Kaira wished she knew what to say to make her feel better, but Rose unclasped something from her neck and held it out to Kaira. It was a little gold heart necklace, the one Rose wore everyday.

  
"I have to go home, but I want you to have this," Rose said. "It'll be something to remember me by, in case I don't see you for...a while."

  
Kaira took the necklace and studied it. She felt immediately confused. Surely this wasn't necessary, right? She'd see her again when she was no longer grounded, wouldn't she?  
Before Rose could elaborate, she hugged Kaira tightly, tears running down her face. And when she pulled back and studied Kaira's face for a moment, Kaira found herself wanting to kiss her. She held back, though. It didn't feel appropriate.

  
"Goodbye, Kaira. I'll be thinking about you."

  
And with that, she turned to walk away.

  
Kaira stood there for a little while and watched her go, feeling lost and confused and worried all at once.

  
"I love you," Kaira said, but she said it so softly that there was no way Rose heard her.


	30. Arc 2 Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> TW: Suicide

A day passed and Kaira's worry wouldn't leave her. She studied the little heart necklace about as thoroughly as she would study her karambit.

  
Something felt off. She couldn't shake the feeling that something was horribly wrong. She worried for Rose incessantly, to the point where she had to make a decision. Kaira still spent a large portion of the time alone, and she didn't like facing strangers, let alone Rose's parents, but she knew she had to make sure Rose was okay.

  
She left the house that day. Her parents were gone doing something or other, Kaira didn't really care, but they wouldn't get to see her leave. The girl walked down the street, hypervigilant in case a police vehicle was to surface. She made note of little hiding places along the way, whether they were hedges or fences. She was long used to doing this by now.

  
It took about 20 minutes for Kaira to reach Rose's house, but when she did, she found that her parents' car was gone from the driveway. Kaira breathed a sigh of relief. She didn't want to see those awful people anyway.

  
Kaira knocked on the door, but there was no response. Kaira's worry mounted. Was Rose even home? She had to be, right? Kaira looked up at the second story of the house, thinking that Rose must be in one of those rooms. She didn't know which one, but maybe she could look. She had to risk it, and luckily the door was unlocked. She opened the door.

  
The room was pretty well decorated, though not as homey as Kaira's place. She could tell that these were prestigious folks, or so they pretended to be. Kaira expected nothing less, the more she thought about it.

  
"Rose?" She called. Once again, no response. Kaira thought about turning around, but then the trip would be for nothing and Kaira would still worry. She had to know what was going on.

  
Kaira trekked up the stairs where she figured the bedrooms were. She remembered that being high up from the ground made Rose feel safe. Kaira never quite understood that about her.

  
As she got up the stairs, she wondered where to start looking for Rose's bedroom. The upstairs wasn't particularly large, so she didn't feel as though she'd have to look far.  
The first door she saw was the one directly down the hall from the stairs. That was as good a place to look as any. She walked down the hall and gently opened the door.

  
"Rose?"

  
There she was, strung up by a rope from the support beams in the ceiling, her body dangling limply.

  
Kaira could swear she felt her heart stop at the sight. For what felt like ages, she couldn't move, couldn't think, couldn't breathe. She didn't feel the way her skin blanched, didn't notice how reality felt like glass breaking all around her, didn't realize how hard her heart was racing or the rapid onset of tunnel vision. 

  
Her best friend was dead. Unmistakably dead.

  
Then she heard a scream behind her that jarred her to the core, and she was knocked violently out of the way as two grown adults thrust their way into the room. Rose's father jumped up on the bed and started untying the rope. Kaira saw Rose's mother point at Kaira and scream something, but all Kaira could hear was the ringing in her ears.

  
Kaira staggered backward and fell with a dull thud on the carpeted floor. Repelled by the sight of her friend's limp body, she pushed herself up, turned, and did the only thing she could think to do.

  
She ran.

  
Kaira wouldn't remember leaving the house or running as fast as she could down the street. She paid no mind to the passersby, who stared at her as she fled at inhuman speeds. She realized she had no idea where she was, but she wasn't capable of caring. She ran fast and far, her breath coming in shallow gasps.

  
_This isn't happening, this isn't happening, this isn't happening, this isn't happening._

  
The only thing that could stop Kaira in her tracks was the sight of Jonah. He'd been standing, talking to two people, when Kaira came skidding to a halt behind him. He turned to face her, a look of alarm on his face, and Kaira's tunnel vision only allowed her to see him.

  
_Him, him him him him him HIM HIM HIM HIM HIM_

  
The weight of it all proving to be too much for her, she collapsed to her knees and broke down in front of him. Not wanting her to make a scene, Jonah knelt down beside her, placing a hand on her shoulder.

  
Immensely startled by the touch, Kaira threw herself backwards away from him, tears running down her face. She staggered to her feet and faced him fully.

  
A moment of thunderous silence passed between the two of them, until finally, Kaira screamed.

  
"IT'S ALL YOUR FAULT!"

  
Jonah's eyes darted back and forth between her and the onlookers, who were openly staring.

  
"Darling, are you - ?"

  
"IT'S ALL YOUR FAULT!" Kaira screamed again. Her entire body shook with the force of her grief and her fury. She looked like a caged animal.

  
Jonah reached out to her and Kaira struck out at his hand with her elbow. A loud crack resounded, and Jonah winced hard at the contact, grasping his injured hand. There was no doubt that Kaira had broken something from the force of her strike.

  
At this moment, the onlookers began to converge on Kaira, trying to get her under control, to contain her. Kaira's head whipped to and fro at the people, all extending their arms to hold onto her.

  
At this moment, Kaira turned and ran again, and nobody could catch her. She ran until she was home, where she collapsed onto the floor of her room.

  
There, she cried for hours. She cried tears of rage and tears of grief. Tears because she feared Jonah, tears because Rose was dead and she was the first person to discover her corpse, tears because of what happened to her to start all this.

  
She cried until she feared her lungs would give out.

  
\-----------

  
It was a good thing that Kaira's parents didn't bother to enter her room that night. She didn't know how she'd react to seeing them. They would probably tell right away that something was wrong based on her demeanor.

  
_Who gives a fuck,_ she thought. _They won't care that much._

  
Kaira's parents had given up on asking her what was wrong with her. She never gave them a proper answer anyway.

  
Everything was fucked. Unbelievably fucked. Kaira couldn't handle it. She got her karambit out of its box and tested its edge like she always did. It usually reminded her of better times, but it made her heart sick now. More than anything, she wished that Joe and the boys were here. She wished she could see them.

  
_Never trust a cop._ That's what Joe would always say. Kaira wished with all her heart that she had listened. Maybe then, none of this would have ever happened.

  
...But Kaira knew that wasn't quite true. Even if Jonah didn't attack her, he still attacked Rose. And if he had attacked her and Rose, Kaira knew there had to be more. Maybe in the future, there'd still be more.

  
Kaira felt herself caving in to despair at the thought. Maybe Rose was right. Maybe nothing would ever change. Maybe Kaira would have to live with the burden of Jonah forever.  
She thought all this as she held her karambit, and for a good long while, she thought of taking her own life as well.

  
But she didn't. She couldn't. Jonah would still be out there and Rose's death would be for nothing.

  
Kaira, even in the throes of profound grief, didn't want that to happen. Never in a million years. But what could she do?

  
The idea came to her as she grasped the knife. Often, she fantasized about killing Jonah, but would she really be able to go through with it? Sure, she could just...break into his house and...it would just be a flick of the wrist and it'd be over. He'd be gone, and she'd never have to worry about him again. He would never claim another victim.

  
He would never claim another victim.

  
Kaira knew that Rose wouldn't like this idea, she hadn't before. But wasn't this what the two of them always wanted? For Jonah to be out of everyone's hair for good? For Jonah to see justice?

  
Rose's idea hadn't worked. Kaira knew that very well. The town was brainwashed and braindead. They would do nothing about all this.

  
But Kaira could.


	31. Arc 2 Chapter 14

Because Kaira was going to school now, her dad felt no need to keep the window locked anymore. This worked well for what Kaira was about to do, as she likely couldn't sneak to the front door without waking her parents. In the earliest hours of the morning, she opened the window and climbed outside, karambit in hand.

  
This was crazy. She had no idea how she'd react when she saw Jonah's face or the inside of his house. This could end up backfiring so badly. He was a police officer, so wasn't he trained for a break-in, at least?

  
Kaira was set in her actions, though. Either she would die, or he would, and with nothing left to lose, she felt okay with those choices.

  
She had to walk across town to get to Jonah's house, but she got there. His fenced-in, two story house loomed over her. Kaira felt her heart start pounding. She wasn't sure she was ready for this, but the alternative, she felt, was death. And she didn't want to go out without a fight.

  
Sheathing her knife, crossing the fenced yard, and jumping from the ground, she placed her hands on the roof and pulled herself up. She was certainly strong enough, after all. Once she was up, she looked into the nearest window.

  
There he was, sleeping soundly on his back. Kaira felt her heart race faster at the sight of him. She paused for a moment before shakily opening the window.  
The first thing she was met with was the smell of his horrible cologne. It brought Kaira back to waking up in the patrol car right after he had violated her. She reeled back, taking a couple breaths of the fresh, outside air.

  
I have to do this, Kaira thought, trying to steady herself. It's him or me.

  
Kaira thought for one dark moment of how ironic it would have been if she killed herself on the roof of his house. She hoped that her bled-out corpse would haunt him forever.

  
But it probably wouldn't stop him from assaulting children. Kaira went on with the plan.

  
Holding her breath, she snuck in through the window and unsheathed her knife. She held it up like an arachnophobe moving to kill a spider with a shoe. Doing so required getting closer than she'd like.

  
For at least a minute, she stood poised over Jonah's sleeping form. Eventually, she had to stop holding her breath, and his sickening scent flooded Kaira's senses. Kaira almost gave up and left then and there, but something held her in place. It was Rose's memory. Kaira remembered how distraught Rose was about her parents not believing her. She imagined the despair she must've been in in order to...

  
Kaira remembered walking in on Rose's lifeless corpse, hanging from the ceiling.

  
It was Jonah's fault. It was all his fault and he needed to pay.

  
At that moment, Kaira snarled her grief and her rage, and brought the knife down.

  
The knife struck Jonah's chest, and he gasped to life. The karambit was easily long enough to have punctured Jonah's left lung, even just a little bit. But Jonah's death would not be instantaneous, as Kaira would realize all too late.

  
Kaira pulled the knife out of Jonah's chest and jumped backwards in fright. He looked briefly down at the wound, and then his attacker. His eyes lit up with shock as he saw who it was that had stabbed him, and Kaira stared back fearfully.

  
At some level trained for combat, Jonah rolled out of bed and reached his hand out to grab Kaira's arm. Kaira reacted, slashing the karambit against his hand. Jonah gritted his teeth, growling from the pain, and continued his defense, throwing his weight against the girl and knocking her hard into the cabinet beyond the foot of the bed. As Kaira collided with the cabinet, a touch-lamp turned on and began to rattle. A bottle of Jonah's cologne fell off the cabinet and shattered against the floor, splashing Kaira with the foul stuff. The lamp soon went with it, and as it broke, the exposed wiring caught the cologne on fire.

  
Kaira jumped up out of the flames, instinctively throwing off her pants, the legs of which were on fire. As she did so, she almost missed Jonah lunging at her, arms outstretched like he was going to hug her. His intention, of course, was to restrain her.

  
Her legs still burning from the flames, Kaira threw a fist towards Jonah's looming face. It made contact, and Kaira could hear the crack of his jaw breaking.

  
Jonah fell to the floor, the flames approaching him fueled by the hardwood flooring. Kaira stared down at him, shaking from terror, hyperventilating. She gripped the karambit with her left hand so hard her knuckles turned white.

  
The predator before her crawled a few steps towards her and grabbed her bare leg with his right hand. Time moved in slow motion as he maneuvered himself upward to his knees. There was a moment where he looked at her pleadingly, but his touch maddened Kaira.

  
She raised her karambit in her fist, let out a savage cry, and plunged the blade diagonally downward, slitting his throat.

  
Blood splattered against Kaira's face as Jonah fell, gurgling, onto the burning floor. Kaira watched him bleed out for a moment and, seeing the flames approaching her, turned tail and ran.

  
Once again in full flight mode, Kaira leaped down the staircase and went clattering to the floor below. Never letting go of her karambit, she hoisted herself back up and slammed the front door open.

  
The deed was done. Jonah was dead. But Kaira had to get out of there as fast as she possibly could.

  
In spite of the distance between Jonah's house and Kaira's, Kaira covered ground quickly. Forgetting all caution in her panic, she threw open the front door and made her way to the bathroom.

  
Kaira looked in the mirror for a moment and saw that the splatter of Jonah's blood mingled with the freckles on her face. Her eyes were wide with terror, her pupils the size of pinpricks. She trembled from head to toe, and she never once let go of the knife in her bloodied hand.

  
His blood. She had to get it off of her. Maybe she could wash off that wretched cologne too.

  
Kaira jumped into the shower, clothes and all, and turned on the faucet. Even now, she was hyperventilating, and her bloody hands shook like leaves. She let the cold water wash over her.

  
Her parents, of course, heard the commotion.

  
"Kaira?" Robert asked aloud, appearing at the doorway with Aki. This startled Kaira so bad that she collapsed into a fetal position against the edge of the bathtub, facing her parents, karambit outstretched threateningly.

  
Robert and Aki saw the blood and their eyes widened with dawning horror.

  
"Where were...what did you do...?"

  
Kaira found she couldn't speak. Tears welled up in her eyes.

  
"Honey, put the knife down," Aki said, trying to soothe Kaira. Kaira shook her head.

  
"Where. Have. You. Been. Answer me!" Robert shouted. Still, Kaira didn't answer. Finally, Aki stepped in.

  
"Sweetheart, please...wherever you've been, you're safe here." Robert looked like he was about to say something, but Aki shushed him before he could speak.

  
"I can't talk about it," was all Kaira managed to choke out.

  
Aki was about to say something, when she sniffed the air. She then drew back with a look of fright.

  
"Jonah..." she said. She recognized his cologne. "Where is he?"

  
Kaira shook her head, failing to contain a sob.

  
"You don't think..." Robert started, addressing Aki.

  
But all Aki could manage was a look of unimaginable pain.


	32. Arc 2 Chapter 15

News of Jonah's death spread quickly that morning. The fire that swallowed his home was broadcasted on every tv station. Police investigated the scene once the fire had died, and it became clear that he'd been murdered before he was burned. No weapons were found at the scene, however, and so they struggled to figure out who the culprit must've been.

  
They didn't have to struggle long.

  
 _"I saw her!"_ One of Jonah's neighbor's cried before the camera. _"That mutant brat! Running out of his house early this morning!"_

  
_"You say the murderer was a mutant?"_

  
_"She doesn't look much like a mutant, but I seen her run so fast she had to have been one!"_

  
Kaira, finally feeling almost perfectly numb after her harrowing experience, recognized a familiar face on the news - her teacher.

  
 _"The death of Jonah Richards is an absolute tragedy,"_ Mrs. Carson said, wracked with emotion.

  
_"I think we can all agree that it is. The murderer is expected to be a mutant, younger than an adult. Do you know anyone like that?"_

  
Mrs. Carson replied with dull shock, and then huffed importantly.

  
_"As a matter of fact, I do! I teach her in my class! Her name is Kaira Blake, and I always knew she'd be trouble. I bet she did it."_

  
Didn't take long for someone to throw Kaira under the bus. That certainly figured. But Kaira was so numb that not even that fazed her.

  
Her parents were in the kitchen, talking in hushed tones. Kaira didn't know what they were talking about, nor did she care.

  
They were able to piece two and two together relatively quickly. They knew that Jonah was dead and that Kaira was the one who did it. They were horrified, and they treated Kaira differently because of it. Her mother handled her extra delicately where her father just...didn't say anything. But he looked at her like she was an alien. Kaira broke down hard only four hours ago, but now that that was over, Kaira felt absolutely nothing. Sure her heart thumped hard in her chest but emotionally? There was nothing there. There was nothing left.

  
It wasn't long before the police were at Kaira's home, and Kaira had to dissociate hard when they led her away. She had no fight left in her. She felt dull panic at the sight of that jail cell, but that was it.

  
She realized with a start that it was the very same jail cell she'd been attacked in. But Jonah wasn't here, and Kaira took some level of comfort in that. She wished her karambit was with her, and not at home, just for an added layer of protection. Kaira had no idea what the police were doing in her home, but she made sure to hide her karambit well just in case it came to this. They'd never find it.

  
It wasn't long, maybe a day, before she was let out. Though for what, she didn't have a clue until the police officer spoke.

  
"You're going on trial," was all he said.

  
This made Kaira hesitate leaving the jail cell. She was vaguely familiar with the way the trial system worked in Cranston based on what she'd overheard her parents talking about. There were no attorneys. The judge controlled all aspects of the trial process, including the defense and the prosecution. The judge, then, had to be completely impartial...at least in theory. Kaira remembered the judge from what Rose had said about him, that he didn't believe anything she told him, and immediately didn't like him.

  
Deep down in her heart, she knew she was fucked.

  
Kaira hated the trip to the courthouse. She was forced to ride in a police cruiser with several officers restraining her. Even dissociating, she could only handle so much, and the experience so horridly reminded her of waking up in a patrol car with Jonah at the wheel. Unable to run, unable to fight, she did the next best thing and froze, trembling nervously. She could sense the tension in the car on the ride there. Kaira could tell that the police officers were just barely restraining themselves. They wanted to beat the shit out of her.

  
"Would anybody notice or care if we just shot the brat?" One of the officers asked his colleagues while Kaira sat in the car.

  
"Hold on, now. You know the judge is gonna have something special planned for her," another officer said. "You hear that, kid? Pretty soon you're gonna wish we'd blown your brains out."

  
Kaira knew they meant it, and trembled all the more. She'd feel safer if she had her knife, even if she didn't have it in her to use it. Surely, she couldn't, after yesterday. The experience had been among the most traumatic she had ever faced, and it was part of the reason she felt so...broken.

  
That was the best way Kaira could have described it: broken. Like she could no longer react the way she normally would. She thought she should feel fearful, or angry, but instead she felt nothing. She wondered if she would ever get her feelings back, but she had bigger fish to fry now.

  
Kaira didn't expect the massive crowd in front of the courthouse, though she thought perhaps she should have. She remembered just how beloved Jonah was to the town. Surely, she thought that every citizen must be there now.

  
They were screaming their fury as the police car drove up, chanting "murderer". And when the police vehicle stopped in front of the courthouse, Kaira simply froze. She had to be dragged roughly out by the officers in the car. As she faced down the crowd, she turned to run, but was held back by the force of the four officers who had been in the car with her. There was no escaping.

  
Everything was a blur as Kaira was dragged through the crowd, unable to walk properly, but Kaira recognized the faces and the voices as she passed. She saw her teacher, and Principal Calloway. She saw neighbors and family friends. All wanted her blood now.

  
"I always knew you were no good!"

  
"I hope they tear you limb from limb!"

  
"If the judge doesn't rip your head off, I will!"

  
The screams and threats became garbled in Kaira's ears, overlapping over one another. Kaira did her best to tune them out, but the combined screams of the townsfolk were so loud it made her ears ring.

  
Finally, Kaira saw Louis, her former friend, with tears in his eyes as he watched her go past. His face screamed betrayal louder than words ever could.

  
Kaira thought she'd be relieved to finally be in the courtroom, but the place was packed. She faintly wondered if she would even get to prepare some kind of defense.  
But what could she say? She'd done it! She'd killed him! And even if she could articulate the reasons why, she had learned from Rose's experiences that no one would believe her. It was hopeless.

  
Kaira was forced to stand behind the podium next to the judge's stand. The screams and curses and threats continued until the judge called for order, then everything was silent.

  
"Kaira Blake, you're on trial for the murder of Jonah Richards, chief of police. Do you have anything to say?"

  
"...No." Kaira replied flatly.

  
"Very well, then. I call this court to order," the judge boomed, his voice naturally louder than Kaira was comfortable with. "I'd like to call the first witness to the stand, Ms. Martin, who claims she saw the defendant leaving Jonah's house in the early hours of yesterday morning."

  
The woman came up to the front of the courtroom, glaring knives and daggers at Kaira. Kaira stared emotionlessly back.

  
"Yes, judge," Ms. Martin started. "I live across the street from the murder victim, so I saw everything. I woke up to the sound of a girl's scream - I'm a light sleeper, you see - and I looked out my window to investigate. I saw a bright light inside Jonah's room, no doubt where the fire came from, and shortly after, I saw the defendant vaulting over the fence."

  
"And you're positive it was her?" the judge asked, and Kaira could tell the question was rhetorical.

  
"Absolutely positive. I saw her clear as day, and she ran so fast that it couldn't have been anybody else."

  
"Thank you. You can take a seat now," the judge said. The woman glared at Kaira and took a seat in the stands.

  
"Normally, I would call the defendant's parents to the stand, but they have reportedly been obstinately silent since the investigation began. Make of that what you will."

  
Kaira could see her parents in the front of the courtroom. Her mother stared at her with concern and fear in her gaze. Her father would hardly look at her.

  
The judge continued.

  
"The next person I'd like to call to the stand is Angus Calloway, the defendant's school principal."

  
 _This has to be good,_ Kaira thought darkly as her principal took the stand.

  
"I knew from the start that Kaira was going to be trouble," Mr. Calloway started. "It started when she was ten. I had to suspend the girl for bringing a knife to school. I'd be willing to bet that that damnable knife was the murder weapon."

  
Some folks in the audience gasped. Surely, this was undeniable proof that Kaira had done what she was being accused of. Kaira wondered if they'd even found the knife she used.

  
"Then where's the knife?!" Robert Blake cried suddenly, as if reading Kaira's mind. This spurred shouts from every corner of the courtroom. The judge banged his gavel against the podium, silencing the dissenting crowd.

  
"I should be asking you that question, Mr. Blake," the judge said.

  
Kaira's father promptly shut up after that.

  
"I thought so," the judge remarked. "And if you ask me, I'd say it's most probable that you're trying to cover up for your daughter."

  
"Lock them up!" One voice shouted.

  
"Easy, easy," the judge crooned. "They're not on trial, their daughter is. And I think their daughter's punishment will be punishment enough for them."

  
There were a cheers from the crowd. So this was it, then. The court had already decided Kaira's guilt. She knew she was doomed from the start, but this was just further confirmation. The judge then turned to Kaira.

  
"So answer me this, Ms. Blake. Why did you do it?"

  
This was it. There was nothing Kaira could say to prove her innocence, and there was little hope of being able to justify the murder to the angry mob. But then she realized, the seeds of dissent had been planted by Rosaline, even if the desert was barren.

  
Maybe Kaira's murder of Jonah would lend credence to Rosaline's claims.

  
"Rosaline Banks told a lot of you what happened to her, b-but nobody believed her," Kaira started.

  
"Keep our daughter's name out of your mouth, you rat!" Came a shrill voice. Rose's mother, no doubt. "You killed our daughter too!"

  
The confused murmurs reached a fever pitch at this point, and Kaira was faced with a whole new accusation that she didn't even remotely expect.

  
"That's right! We found our dear daughter hanging from the ceiling, and the only other person in the house at the time was the monster standing before you! She did it! I swear it!"

  
The crowd was in an uproar, and Kaira nearly fell from the podium from the sheer shock of it all.

  
Then shock gave way to anger.

  
"I didn't kill Rose!" Kaira cried loudly, the microphone blaring. "You did! You all did! She killed herself because nobody believed her but me! That's why I killed Jonah!"

  
Everyone in the courtroom was on their feet now, screaming their shock and outrage at Kaira's sudden confession.

  
"ORDER! I DEMAND ORDER!" The judge boomed, and it took an entire minute, but the crowd got itself under control eventually.

  
"So you've admitted it," the judge finally said, addressing Kaira. "And you claim it was because of those nasty rumors spread by Rosaline. Is that it?"

  
"No," Kaira choked. "H-he got me too. That's how I know Rose wasn't kidding."

  
There was silence in the crowd. Kaira very acutely felt all eyes on her, and it made her light-headed.

  
"So what did Jonah allegedly do, then? Speak up!"

  
"I...I don't know...I was asleep and..."

  
"Then how do you know he even did anything?"

  
"Because I...I just..."

  
A million thoughts worked their way through Kaira's head at once. She could have talked about the fake mint, passing out in the jail cell with Jonah's hands upon her, she could have talked about the pain and the bleeding when she returned home.

  
But she saw all those hateful, accusatory glares in the audience, and found that once again, the words wouldn't come.

  
"...I..."

  
Then, Kaira's eyes rolled into the back of her head, and she passed out.


	33. Arc 2 Chapter 16

Kaira woke up at home that night, with her mother leaning over her on the couch with tears in her eyes and her father nowhere to be found. For a moment, she wondered if everything had just been a bad dream. But then, she felt the bump on her head, no doubt from having collapsed at the podium, and realized that this was reality.

  
"What happened...?" Kaira asked her mother.

  
Tears began falling down Aki's face as she broke down. She didn't answer the question.

  
"Exile." Came her father's voice. He was stern as he always was, but he wore an expression of profound worry and sadness. "You're leaving tomorrow."

  
To say Kaira had lost the trial would be an understatement.

  
"But...what am I gonna do?" Kaira asked helplessly.

  
"You need to find Joe. Walk directly South of here until you find a forest, and then keep walking." Aki wiped her tears away. "We managed to get the judge to let us prepare you, so your father and I are packing some supplies."

  
"They'll only last you about a month, so eat and drink sparingly," Robert said. The flatness in his tone was betrayed by the absolute misery in his eyes.

  
"Honey, why didn't you just tell us that all this was going on?" Aki asked.

  
"I couldn't..." Kaira said. "I was terrified of telling you guys. I was terrified that you wouldn't believe me." At this moment, Aki took Kaira's face in her hands.

  
"I _do_ believe you, Kaira. Rosaline told us what happened to her, but your father and I didn't want to believe her. Mostly, we didn't want to believe that the same thing might have happened to you. When I saw you in the bathroom that morning, and I smelled Jonah's cologne, I knew exactly where you'd been. And I knew exactly why." Aki started to cry, once again. "And I knew then I should've listened. You didn't deserve to go through any of that alone."

  
Kaira sniffled then, beginning to cry as well. She looked at her father and found there were tears in his eyes too.

  
Kaira hugged her mother hard, crying like it was the last time she would ever see her.

  
\-----------

  
Morning came far sooner than Kaira hoped for, and soon a mob was at the door.

  
_Some farewell party,_ Kaira thought bitterly. She found she hated every single face in that crowd. Kaira donned her backpack and when the police opened the door, she was ready. And she faced those officers with as much defiance as she had left. It wasn't much, but it felt like something.

  
Kaira's parents tried to follow her, but the police held them back.

  
"But that's our daughter!" Robert cried.

  
"You've had enough time with the brat. Hope you said your goodbyes, because you'll never see her again." One officer remarked callously.

  
Even as Kaira was whisked out the door without being able to say goodbye, she worried about what would happen to her parents. They would be social pariahs now, there was no doubt about that. But surely, the town wouldn't orchestrate anything awful happening to them, right? Kaira was thrown into the back of the police cruiser, and even then she didn't know. She ignored the jeering, bloodthirsty crowd and focused on her parents, locking eyes with them one last time before it was time to go.

  
Kaira found the ride to the edge of town to be relatively short. Thankfully, there were no people to see her off. Kaira wasn't sure she could stand to look at one more angry citizen. Being alone in a cruiser with nothing but police officers was harrowing enough.

  
But once again, she tried to shove the fear down. It would be over soon anyway, and Kaira would be alone for god knows how long.

  
It wasn't long before the cruiser stopped where the town was barely even a blip on the horizon. This was it. Kaira's journey was to end and begin here.

  
Kaira wasted no time getting out of the cruiser as soon as the door opened. She backed up from them so they couldn't restrain her, staring warily at them as if they were holding guns. Some of them did have guns.

  
"You have two options, kid." An officer said. "You can turn around and start walking so you can die a slow death in the desert, or you can make a run back for the town, at which point, we're authorized to shoot. Which is it?"

  
Kaira stared back at them defiantly. They looked like they genuinely wanted to shoot her. "Make my day," their gazes said.

  
In the last month and a half, Kaira had been through hell and back, and this was the choice she was faced with?

  
The answer was exceedingly obvious. Kaira wasn't dying. Not here, not there, not anywhere. And she didn't need the city's shelter to succeed.

  
She spat on the ground in front of the officers.

  
"Get fucked, pigs." Kaira snarled.

  
And with that, she turned and walked until the police, and the town, were out of sight.

  
\-----------

  
The day dragged on, hot as could be in the sun. Kaira wanted nothing more than to suck down a whole bottle of water, but she knew she couldn't. She had to make sure she was just hydrated enough to go on. How long would it even be, anyway?

  
Kaira didn't know, but in that moment, she had a hard time caring.

  
She was free. There was no more running, no more fear, no more angry townsfolk, and most of all, no more Jonah.

  
By the time night came around, she settled down. It was gonna get cold out, like it usually did at night in the desert. So Kaira rummaged through her backpack.

  
Inside was a month's worth of food and water, a first aid kit with antivenom, matches, a tarp, a compass, and...

  
Her karambit.

  
She clutched that knife like a lifeline. Its memory had served her so many times and now it had freed her from the tyranny of Jonah's presence. As she ate her ration of food and drank her water, laid out her tarp and began to sleep, she rested her karambit facing South so she'd know where to go when she woke up.

  
Soon enough, she'd be with Joe, Riley, and Chandler again.


	34. Arc 2 Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gotdang it's about time I uploaded something. I'm gonna update every week until I run out of backlogged content!

A week had passed since Rosaline's hanging, and only a day had passed since she got out of the hospital. There had been complications, as she had been hanging for a while, but she ultimately survived the experience with the bruises on her neck to show for it.

  
Her parents were, of course, happy to see that she was alive. They told her that everything was okay, and that they forgave her for lying about Jonah. They ungrounded her on the spot.

  
Then they told her that Jonah was dead - what a tragedy that was.

  
Rose asked how, and her parents gave her the full story. They told her about how Kaira Blake was the murderer. That she had broken into his house, stabbed him, broke his jaw, slit his throat, and lit his house on fire. There were tears in their eyes.

  
But Rose could only sit there in her hospital bed, in utter shock.

  
_She actually did it._

  
Rose asked what happened to Kaira, and her parents were more than happy to tell her. They told her of the trial, and how Kaira was sentenced to what would undoubtedly be a slow death in the desert. The town was safe from her now. Rose was safe from her now.

  
Then Rose started to cry.

  
Her parents assumed wrongly that she was crying for Jonah. After everything Rose had been through, she didn't bother to correct them. She had learned it was pointless. They were committed to being ignorant and wrong. They hugged her through her grief nonetheless.

  
When Rose got home from the hospital, she asked if she could go outside. She lied and said she wanted to let everybody know that she was okay. So they let her go.

  
Rose walked until she got to the edge of town, and then walked some more. Her goal was to get to where they'd dropped Kaira off. Maybe there was a chance she'd still be there.

  
But she wasn't. She was nowhere to be seen.

  
Rose called until her throat was sore, hoping for an answer, hoping to at least say goodbye.

  
When at last she gave up, she dropped to her knees in the sand and cried. She cried for what felt like forever.

  
Then she started to speak.

  
She told Kaira that she was sorry. She was sorry to have driven her to the point of murder. She was sorry that she couldn't have helped Kaira. She was sorry that things turned out the way they did.

  
And then she brought up Kaira's uncle and cousins.

  
She hoped Kaira would find them.


End file.
